[Vision2020] CNN Breaking News

[Ted Moffett]

Melynda, Don et. al.

I don't think Mr. Kaag is as cruel or callous as his comment might indicate, 
but I concur with Melynda's assessment of Kaag's statement that the death of 
those Iraq citizens in question was "not a major loss to the gene pool" when 
she called it "an obscene phrase."

This war is being "sold" as a righteous campaign to liberate the people of 
Iraq, install a democratic government, and rid the world of a brutal 
dictator who threatens civilization with weapons of mass destruction.  But 
the realities of this war may make a mockery of these idealistic goals.  We 
may end up with more terror and hatred in the world by the prosecution of 
this war.

The soldiers who fired upon those women and children in what I am sure they 
regarded as justifiable self defense, likely do not want to be associated 
with a view of those who died as "not a major loss to the gene pool."  
Perhaps some of them are that callous, but I know from talking to soldiers 
who have killed innocents in war that this haunted them for years.

This war is a mess, and like all wars, people become brutalized, polarized 
and willing to justify all sorts of horrors that demonstrate how easy it is 
to strip the veneer of civilization from the mind.

I might have done exactly what those soldiers did if I was placed in their 
situation.

Ted


>From: "Melynda Huskey" <mghuskey@hotmail.com>
>To: dkaag@turbonet.com, vision2020@moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] CNN Breaking News
>Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 09:07:49 -0800
>
>Five children under five years of age were killed in that van.  Five babies 
>and children that I'd like to believe Don Kaag didn't intend to include in 
>the obscene phrase "not a major loss to the gene pool."
>
>What I find so painfully horrific about this situation, which will multiply 
>across Iraq as the war continues, is the destruction of everyone touched by 
>it.  Those children are dead.  A pregnant woman was wounded but survived.  
>A man was seriously wounded and is expected to die.  None of them was 
>armed.
>
>And a group of very young soldiers--the average age of U.S. soldiers in 
>this war is 19--will never recover from what they were forced by 
>circumstance to do.   They will live with the blood of children on their 
>hands.  What did they do to deserve that?  What rhetoric of liberation, or 
>"support for the troops" can heal them?  Their humanity has been crushed, 
>and they are as innocent as those dead children.
>
>The shame of this war rests on all of us:  it's our war.  We invaded Iraq 
>in pursuit of--what?  Peace?  Liberation?  Oil?  I don't know.  Whatever it 
>was, it wasn't worth the brief agony of those children or the lifelong 
>suffering of those soldiers.  It wasn't worth the dehumanization that makes 
>it possible for anyone here at home to dismiss their pain as "too bad" for 
>them.
>
>Melynda Huskey
>
>"We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward 
>weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever: this is our 
>testimony to the whole world."
>Quaker Declaration of 1660
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*  
>http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
>
>_____________________________________________________
>List services made available by First Step Internet, serving the 
>communities of the Palouse since 1994.                 http://www.fsr.net   
>                              mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com
>ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ


_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail