Why does America have to create so much misery in the world...

[Crankie Avalon]

...and have we finally reached the point where we do more harm than good? Or am I naive to think that we ever did?

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The heartbreak of war
For one reader, a single photograph brought home the inconceivable horror that is Iraq.

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By J. Scott Smith

Nov. 18, 2004 | Perhaps, being a new father, I am overly sensitive to such things, but today the image I saw on my computer screen brought me to tears. The photograph, appearing on the BBC's Web site, was from some street or another in Fallujah, Iraq. The caption, although gruesome enough, was a comparatively bland statement that "Bodies have been left uncollected for days." Yet what the picture depicted was testimony to the unmitigated and unavoidable tragedy of war. In the picture we see the "uncollected" body of a man lying in the street, his arms still clutching yet another uncollected body, that of a child. The child's body was clasping the man's shoulders, holding on for what was dear life to the now headless corpse of, who knows, his (or her, you cannot tell) father, uncle, brother, someone he trusted to protect and shelter him. The picture can be seen here.



One can only imagine the sheer terror and unfathomable sadness of their last moments, gunfire and explosions ringing in their ears, trying to find safety in a war they did not ask for, a war they did not start. Perhaps the man was trying to carry the child to safety, or maybe the child saw him die and rushed to him only to be killed as well. All we know is that there they now lie, a man and his child, eternally locked in each other's arms, as soldiers from a foreign land amble past.

I cannot help but think of the argument many made, and I myself considered: that this war would ultimately be for the betterment of the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator after all. Yet these two lives were certainly not improved. To them the spreading of democracy brought only terror and death.

Continued: http://www.salon.com/opinion/letters/2004/11/18/fallujah/index.html

[ingasm]

1. That's awful.

If more Americans could see images like these and actually understand that war is horrific. I hope Bush can learn how to use peace rather than our military force to do the talking.

[newyawker99]

9. Hi ingasm!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Because your Anglo-elite right-wingers can only rule when chaos

reigns. What's the first thing the CIA does when a country looks like it might get on its feet? It destabilizes the economy.

[djeseru]

3. What scares me, what makes me shudder...

...is that I know the ones who are responsible for this awful tragedy probably look at this scene and laugh. They sit in their high places, above it all, and just laugh...

:cry:

[LynzM]

4. ....

speechless.

I agree that more pictures need to be shown to the public, of what war actually means. Out of sight, out of mind.

[Benhurst]

5. Because that is the Bush Collective's imperative n/t

[Webster Green]

6. T'was ever thus....

We have sucked for quite some time now.

Greed, arrogance, racism. Its the American way.

[Thoth]

7. When America's collective Karma comes due...

watch out.

[madrchsod]

8. simple-because we can

and no one can stop the united states of america-not even us...