WSWS"Those killed included a 9-year-old boy, an 11-year-old girl, three women and three men. Another two women and an 8-year-old boy were badly injured and as of late Tuesday afternoon, another three people were missing. McClellan would probably refute the claim that "F-14 fighters levelled a house on the basis of scant information and with complete disregard for the lives of innocent men, women and children," displaying a "callous indifference for civilian life." I beg your pardon. Our military commanders are not indifferent. Frequently they go "'out of the way to avoid civilian casualties...'" That makes the US better than the Nazis, or at least no worse. But if they'll bomb families over there, they'll bomb families over here. What's the difference? Families are families.
"If the President decides to stay the course in Iraq some troops would be compelled to serve fourth and fifth tours of combat by 2007 and 2008, which could have serious consequences for morale and competency.'"
This defeatist diatribe is followed by a lot of whining about "snuffing" and "whacking" targets by some other terrorist sympathizers in the CIA and bourgeois press who seem to expect us to give F-14s to Shi'ites. Before we start counting the chickens to be "redeployed" from Iraq this year according to Don "we may lie from time to time" Rumsfeld, we maybe should count how many chickens it will take to follow up air strikes on Iran. "Morale and competency" means that they will be so exhausted and hopeless that they are likely to get themselves killed a lot easier, or to shoot anything that looks like it might be about to jump them by surprise. You do the math then. No troops, no Production Sharing Agreements for all that oil. All that money sunk into the fascist coup d'etat and lifetime, no-bid, cost plus world war down the proverbial well. If keeping recruiters away has evolved into one of the first political "movements" in America in thirty years, how likely is it that US youths will line up for a changing of the guard? If you come up with something other than a military draft, please let me know.
