Following the two incidents resulting in recent British casualties in Iraq, Donnie “Darko” Rumsfeld says:
Their deaths are a sober reminder that while major combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is over, our country and coalition forces remain engaged in a difficult and dangerous war: the global war on terror… Every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, throughout the world, brave men and women risk their lives to defend us all from terror.
Terror?
I think the Iraqi soldiers involved would be somewhat surprised to learn they are terrorists. The whole notion of terror – in US rhetoric at least – is reaching ominously abstract proportions. It’s a catch-all bogeyman.
The newspapers here are also pointing out relative casualties (US high, Brits low) in relation to their different approaches to peacekeeping (gung-ho vs. low-key, helmets vs. caps, etc.).
More important I think is a point made in the Metro this morning: the US recently destroyed a convoy of civilian vehicles that “might have been” been transporting Iraqi leaders (and then shot some Syrian border guards for good measure). Now they’re DNA analysing the bits that are left to see if was anyone they’re looking for. To carry out these attacks on such scant evidence is surely just murder? It’s exactly like the Israelis assassinating the Hamas guy with missiles – knowing innocent people will be slaughtered – but without even any good chance of getting their man.
26-Jun-03 at 2:03 pm | Permalink
By the same token the heroic French Resistance were terrorists in German eyes. This current US administration scares me shitless. Dubya is just a figurehead it’s like this scary unelected New American Century crowd are really in charge and that is somewhat worrying. As for Israel they’re just a bunch of murderers too. By all means take out those that need it but don’t do it with helicopter gunships.