I just finished reading Newsweek's latest coverpiece on the alleged massacre in Haditha. God this war sucks. It sucks to be those soldiers, it sucks that they lost control (allegedly) and it sucks that we are there in the first place. And we struggle to be the force in the world that plays by the "better" rules. Its okay for the insurgency to place IEDs all over the place as we attempt to create peace, and for them to bomb their own civilians, but we may not. Its a hard thing to grasp, but I think it is important to understand the advantage of our position in the world, and that we a civilized and moral society.
On that note, I am having trouble with the assassination of Zarqawi this last week. I know that this guy was a big al-Queda ringleader, and that he needed to be stopped. There is no doubt that he has been responsible for taking more lives than anyone other than Saddam Hussein himself. However, the assassination just seems wrong. And further wrong for us to celebrate it. He was a bad man, fighting for a bad cause, but it is only a reminder of the twisted and sad world we live in, not something to give high-fives over on FoxNews.
We are in Iraq trying to spread democracy and freedom and justice and peace. Shouldnt we pretend to hold those values ourselves? Where was the "due process" here? How are we supposed to tell Iraqis that it is not okay to chop off the hands of thieves or beat their women if they dress improperly when we bomb the shit out of somebody who presented a problem for us without any sort of systemic way to make sure that WE ourselves are not the unjust ones, imposing an unjust rule...
I know that the Hussein trial has simply been a circus. But that is because it is run by the international community. If we knew enough to bomb Zarqawi, we probably could have sent in a force to capture him. If he fought back (which we know he would have), then I have no problem with his body becoming riddled with machine gun fire, just as with anyone who opens fire on our police force here in the U.S. But suppose, just suppose, that we captured him alive. We could turn him in to the Iraqis and let them serve justice on him as they wish. We have enough foreign pressure in Iraq that we could have assured that he not be treated lightly, but it would have been an incredible act of good faith to show that we are confident enough in the new government to let it deal with its own traitors in a judicious manner.
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christian, i have to agree with you on the manner in which zarqawi was (essentially) obliterated. it seems ironic that we would capture saddam alive and pretend like we want to "do justice" the proper and civil way (via tribunals), but then we "do justice" to zarqawi, not with gavels, but grenades.
maybe it has something to do with the fact that saddam was the leader of iraq, and zarqawi wasn't. i dunno. the US says saddam has since been deposed. if that's true, why didn't we just blast him to bits, too?
our foreign policy continues to puzzle me.
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