Where Does It End?
I am not writing this from a partisan perspective. I do not identify with either major US political party. But when I read of yet another shift in who the US military in Iraq considers most dangerous, I have to wonder, where does this end?
US forces have alternately identified Sunni insurgents and Shi’ite militants as the greatest threats to peace in Iraq. It’s changed so many times I can’t help but feel at least a little sorry for John McCain, who can’t keep the differences straight in his head. The truth is, the vast majority of Americans would have no idea who the enemy of the moment was in the media didn’t keep them up to date. As for the actual theological or cultural differences between them? That’s too boring to cover. Irrelevant. They just hate each other.
When will it end? Will US forces simply keep yo-yoing back and forth, continually helping whoever is on the wrong end of the stick? Is it any wonder when civilians are killed in cases of mistaken identity? The average US citizen (left or right) just knows one enemy now: Iraqis. Ironic, isn’t it, since one of the stated goals of the original invasion was to “free the Iraqi people.” I don’t think anyone will end up any more free than when it began. Maybe the Kurds will, simply because no one bothers to notice them at the moment.
The whole thing sings of rotten ironies. The president who vowed to end nation-building (remember that, anyone?) has gotten the United States involved in possible the most complex and dangerous form of it. The war to bring freedom and democracy to an oppressed people looks more and more like something out of 1984. The calls to defeat the enemy and win the war at all costs begin to resemble the call of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness: “Exterminate the brutes.” Or even the Kurtz of Apocalypse Now: “Drop the bomb. Exterminate them all!”
I weep for the Iraqi child who does not understand why his world has gone crazy, why everything is coming apart around him. I do not write this as an American or one beholden to the Stars and Stripes. I write this as a child of God who sees only a multiplication of nakedness, hunger, and fatherlessness.