insomnomaniac

2,000 who did NOT die in vain

The following op-ed appeared in--of all places--my former home paper, the Boston Globe.

WE ARE OFTEN preoccupied with milestones and numbers, and the death of the 2,000th American soldier in the war in Iraq has been an occasion for much reflection. This particular milestone comes at a time when President Bush is already reeling from a number of political blows. At present, fewer than 40 percent of Americans approve of Bush's handling of the war -- and 55 percent think we should not have gone to war against Saddam Hussein in the first place. The gloom is not surprising, considering that the main rationale originally given for the war -- Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- has turned out to be a fiasco.

But what if the pessimists turn out to be wrong in the long run?
Amid the bad news, a piece of good news has been eclipsed. On Oct. 25, the results of the Iraqi constitutional referendum were announced. The provisional constitution was approved by a 78 to 21 percent margin, though three provinces dominated by Sunni Arabs voted against it. (In one, the ''no" votes did not reach the two-thirds majority required to defeat the constitution.) United Nations observers confirmed that the outcome was untainted by fraud.

For the first time ever, an Arab country has adopted a democratic constitution by referendum. Despite the threat of terrorism, Iraqi men and women went to the polls in massive numbers: Turnout was about 63 percent. In December, parliamentary elections are to be held. This may not be democracy as we know it: The draft Iraqi constitution enshrines Islam as the state religion (though it also prohibits discrimination based on gender and religion), and the people tend to vote as the clerics tell them. But surely, it is a positive step in a country long tyrannized by a bloody dictatorship.

Of course all is not rosy in Iraq, as Ms. Young goes on to point out, but there are Floridians still struggling without power or clean water in the wake of Hurricane Wilma, and I'd be willing to bet if you gave them the choice of their current predicament stretched out over a year or the threat that some goon would come to their door tonight, or tomorrow night, or ever, and take their daughters, wives, sons, brothers, mothers or fathers into the gloom never to be seen or heard from again and without recourse, they'd take what they've got and be thrilled with it.

Not that they'd opt to have roadside bombs going off left and right, but who knows? Perhaps the hope of being able to avoid or prevent such attacks is still better than the helpless hopeless feeling one must have living under a Saddam-type dictator. I don't know for sure, I can only guess, and what I find so ironic is that the very same people in this country who would accuse George Bush of being a dictator, and who would have us all believe that life during his "reign of terror" is the worst thing imaginable STILL would prefer that we had left the Iraqis so suffer under a man even they admit was "a bad guy" or in brief moments of sanity "an evil dictator."

Not that I'm carrying water for the Bushies right now--I'm not. I'd like a REAL Republican in office, but hey, I'll take him over John "the poor Sunnis aren't getting enough representation" Kerry any day of the week and twice on Sundays. The key point here is that while we are busy mourning the 2,000 soldiers who died in Iraq, we should take a moment to recognize what they helped accomplish. Unlike their brothers-in-arms in Somalia, Kosovo and yes, even Vietnam, their deaths have NOT been in vain.

Posted by insomnomaniac at October 31, 2005 6:53 PM