Today, the TV is full of bad news from Iraq. Car bombs kill 75, and Helicopter crash, all 12 dead. Both tragic stories, and it makes my heart ache to think of all those people, and the families of those people. One of them hits closer to home than the other.
I read about the helicopter crash on Saturday, not too long after it happened. As always with first reports, there were no details, like the model of the helicopter, or even which branch of the military it was. I'm sure they wait for family members to notified, as they well should, before releasing identifying details like that.
So my mind was whirling for a few minutes. Trying to figure out what time my husband had last emailed me. Rereading the little bit of info in the news for any details, like where it went down. What kind of mission it was on. Anything to help me eliminate the possibility . . . . Suddenly every car that went by the house made my heart stop. I called our friends, another helo pilot family, who pointed out a convincing reason it probaby wasn't one of ours, and so then I could stop shaking. I still needed to hear from Jamie before I'd be able to sleep, and fortunately he called later that night.
But ultimately, they're all "ours." The relief of knowing it's not my family is always followed by sadness that it's someone elses family.
And I am getting really mad now. Our people are over there trying to bring them security, stability, healthcare, education, and democracy, and these people are shooting us down and blowing up their own! That is making me steam.
And it makes me wonder, what portion of the Iraqi population are "insurgents"? And how big a portion makes up all the people gratefully accepting the schools and hospitals and police force and government we are helping them build? The amount of attention the media gives to each is surely no way to tell. Not by the headlines, anyway. Our headlines love to toll the number of Americans killed, the number of civilian Iraqis killed. Those losses are heartbreaking, and take a toll on anyone's will to keep at it.
In wars past, there were headlines tolling the enemies deathcount. A grim statistic, yes, but a visible ticker of progress made. And when I say that, I do think to myself, "death shouldn't equal progress."
And then I remind myself that these people we are killing--I don't need the distance of euphemisms here, no "eliminating targets" or "neutralizing threats,"--because these people we are killing are bombing civilians. They are killing Iraqi men, women, and children, and they are killing Americans for trying to stop them. I strongly believe in the sanctity of life, all life, but there is such a thing as a just war, and I have no problem with this one.
And so if I saw a headline or two tolling the number of insurgents dead, the number of terrorists killed . . . I would think, how terrible war is, what a shame, I might even imagine the wives and children and mothers they had. And yet, I would know that means there are fewer terrorists out there, that there are less people trying to kill civilians and coalition forces trying to protect them. Trying to help them build a nation that doesn't breed terrorists, that instead teaches their young to revere democracy and human rights.
So we all wonder, are we making progress? Would the headlines even tell us if we were?
