If anything, the following articles will serve to illustrate why a warmongering administration who starts wars on personal whims must never be re-elected or elected ever again.

How many families, all over the world, have been, and will be torn apart, because of his lies?

================

Sacrifice in the In-Box (Link)

By Thomas E. Ricks
Friday, June 11, 2004; Page A25

The death notices from Iraq come across my computer screen by e-mail and always follow the same format. Each states the name of the dead soldier and his or her rank, age and hometown, as in: "Pfc. Melissa J. Hobart, 22, of Ladson, S.C." It also identifies the unit, and so tells you whether this was an active-duty soldier or a part-time reservist or a National Guard member.

As a military reporter for The Post, I get copies of all of them. On good days there are none, or one. On some bad days, such as this past Monday, there are several.

If the soldier was in the Army, there also is usually a sentence giving a bare-bones account of the means of death -- mortar attack, roadside bomb, small-arms fire or vehicle accident account for most. June 2: "Capt. Robert C. Scheetz Jr., 31, of Dothan, Ala., died May 30 in Musayyib, Iraq, when his vehicle hit an improvised explosive device" -- the U.S. military term for a roadside bomb, frequently made with an old artillery shell and a remote detonator. The Marine Corps notices are shorter, because they don't disclose the cause of death, on the grounds that -- as those news releases sometimes state -- such information could aid the foe in Iraq.

In other conflicts I've covered -- Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti -- the death notices were fewer or came in bursts and stopped after a few weeks or months. Now the notices have gone on for more than a year, providing a continual but uneven drumbeat.

There have been lots lately. I read them all. Even on the busiest of days, when I am on deadline writing an article, I pause when an e-mail pops up on my screen with the subject line "DoD Identifies Army Casualty."

I do this partly for my job, tracking the casualties to maintain a sense of where the fighting is hot. I also look to see if the person was from Virginia, Maryland or the District, so I can let The Post's Metro section know if it needs to do a story.

But I read them as much for personal reasons. In 15 years of covering the military, I've interviewed thousands of soldiers. So, with that feeling of being suspended at the top of a roller coaster just before it plummets, I look to see if I knew the soldier or his unit, especially from my time knocking around Iraq with the 1st Armored Division, the 1st Infantry Division and other outfits. I keep my fingers crossed: So far, no one I've interviewed during several "embedded" reporting trips has appeared in the KIA notices. But there frequently are losses from brigades and battalions I've spent time with in Baghdad, Baqubah and Baiji and outside Najaf.

I also do it because I feel I owe it to each soldier to pause and read this short notice of his or her passing. It isn't much to ask.

So often the notices are about young men from small American towns I've never heard of dying in small Iraqi towns I've never heard of. May 26: "Pfc. Owen D. Witt, 20, of Sand Springs, Mont., died May 24 in Ad Dawr, Iraq, when his armored high-mobility-multipurpose-wheeled vehicle rolled over." Where is Sand Springs, Mont., I wondered. I couldn't find it in a road atlas.

Sometimes the names just strike me. "Lance Cpl. Elias Torrez III, 21, of Veribest, Texas." I think of a father and grandfather bearing the same name, and the grim news they've just received.

"Spc. Beau R. Beaulieu, 20, of Lisbon, Maine, died May 24 in Taji, Iraq, during a mortar attack on Camp Cooke." I would have liked to have met him, I thought.

Together, the notices amount to a mosaic of sacrifice, showing what parts of America have sons and daughters dying in Iraq. May 21: "Sergeant First Class Troy L. Miranda, 44, of DeQueen, Ark." They remind me that what goes on in Iraq isn't just a matter of President Bush's political future, or the billion dollars being spent there every week by the U.S. military, or the role of the United States in the world. It also is about the nearly unbearable price paid almost every day by some American family.

They aren't all from small towns, of course. There are Hispanics from big cities -- "Lance Cpl. Benjamin R. Gonzalez, 23, of Los Angeles, Calif., died May 29 due to hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq." There have been more of these since the Marines went back into Iraq this spring -- the Corps seems to attract a lot of Hispanics from the coasts and from the Southwest, such as "Staff Sgt. Jorge A. Molina-Bautista, 37, of Rialto, Calif." and "1st Lt. Oscar Jimenez, 34, of San Diego, Calif."

Also, with more front-line units from the National Guard serving in Iraq, there lately have been more aging sergeants, fathers and grandfathers, such as "Command Sgt. Maj. Edward C. Barnhill, 50, of Shreveport, La."; "Sgt. Frank T. Carvill, 51, of Carlstadt, N.J."; and "Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, 59, of Schaumburg, Ill."

The Guard units, based as they are in communities, also bring painful clusters of casualties. This was the notice that appeared on my screen at 6:12 p.m. Monday:

"Assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry, headquartered in Cottage Grove, Ore.:

1st Lt. Erik S. McCrae, 25, of Portland, Ore.

Sgt. Justin L. Eyerly, 23, of Salem, Ore.

Spc. Justin W. Linden, 22, of Portland, Ore."

They are all losses, but the youngest ones haunt me most -- those Justins, Dustins, Brandons, Shawns, Kyles, Corys and Codys barely out of their teens, or sometimes still in them.

"Pfc. Cody S. Calavan, 19, of Lake Stevens, Wash., died May 29 due to hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq." He was younger than my own son, I think -- born when Ronald Reagan was president, and probably still in kindergarten during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And now he is dead somewhere in western Iraq.

I hope history finds their sacrifices worth it.

The writer covers the military for The Post.

Tim's Last Kill (Link)

As a child Tim Eysselinck was obsessed with toy soldiers, John Wayne and guns. As an adult he became a US soldier, a keen hunter and toured the world clearing mines. Then he shot himself dead after returning from Iraq. His mother Janet Burroway reflects on the life of 'a fiercely honourable boy'

Friday July 2, 2004
The Guardian

I have today cancelled the subscription of my son Timothy Alan Eysselinck to American Rifleman, and removed his name from the National Rifle Association mailing lists, lobbying efforts, fund solicitations, and so forth. Tim has been a lifetime member of the NRA, a registered Republican, an avid hunter of both small and big game, a ranger and a captain in the US army, and a civilian contractor for humanitarian de-mining. Because he was deployed or employed all over the world, his NRA mail still comes to the house in Tallahassee where he spent part of his childhood and his adolescence, but as he shot and killed himself on April 23, the messages are no longer received.
I have been looking over the most recent issue of Rifleman, trying to grasp why a fiercely honourable boy fell in love with objects manufactured to destroy, and why such boys continue to believe that such objects foster integrity and peace. But my mind is not adequate to the task, and the magazine is not intended to explain to the unconverted.

We came to England when Tim was 15 months old, I to teach at the University of Sussex and his father to direct the Gardner Centre for the Arts in Brighton.

I have a black-and-white snapshot of Tim and his little brother Alex, both of them fair-haired and long-lashed, squatting in an orchard full of daffodils in the Sussex countryside where we lived until Tim was eight. I also own a colour photograph taken in the African savanna of Tim, now grown, kneeling over the carcass of a kudu, surrounded by his wiry Cameroonian guides. Now, looking at the toddler in the daffodils, I can see the clear lineaments of the hunter's face. But squatting beside him I had no premonition of which planes, tilts, colours of that cherub head would survive.

Tim was a loving and obedient child, fascinated none the less with all things military, tactical, strategic, ballistic. He could spend hours repositioning the limbs of a plastic soldier or reproducing the patina of wear on a toy ammo belt. As a teenager he sought discipline and rigour, to the wonder of my friends.

He lit with enthusiasm for his most demanding teachers, praising their strictness. He was modest, intense, and had few but deep friendships. He was, like his brother, proud of his Scottish heritage and the grandmother who was "pure-bred McKenzie", but of the two McKenzie mottos it was clear that Tim espoused the Celtic that translates, "All for the king," whereas Alex and I wore the Latin badge "Luceo non uro", meaning "light not heat", or, "I shine not burn".

Tim, who described himself as a fiscal conservative and social liberal, held tolerant attitudes with regard to sex, race and religion. His politics, however, emanated from a spirit of gravity rather than irony. In puberty he developed no interest in sports but read voraciously, mostly adventure novels, admired John Wayne's acting and his politics, and more than once to my despair quoted, "My country right or wrong."

For a period he enjoyed goading my Democrat and Labour friends with army swagger. At 18 he came home at three one morning, in tears because he could not go to defend England's honour in the Falklands. I had to be aware of my own contradictions in his presence: a feminist charmed by his machismo, a pacifist with a temper.

We came to acknowledge that, mother and child, we could not only not share, but could not respect each other's world views. Our task was to love each other in the absence of that respect. It was a tall order. We agreed that we did pretty well at it. And Tim was broad-minded enough to observe once, "It's a good thing it's you who's the liberal, mom. If I was the parent, I wouldn't want to let you be you the way you've let me be me."

Tim took a degree in history at the University of Florida, where he was a member of the Reserve Officer Training Corps, then spent four years stationed with the army in Hawaii, where he described himself as a "warrior without a war".

He left to work for a security corporation guarding the embassies and multinationals in Cameroon, and, as a US army reserve officer in Stuttgart, was sent to Bosnia, the Republic of Congo, and then to Namibia, where he learned the skill of de-mining. In Windhoek, the Namibian capital, he married on the eve of the millennium, became a stepfather and later a father to a daughter, who is now three and a half.

In August last year, having completed a two-year humanitarian de-mining project on the Ethiopian-Eritrean border (his family spent that time in Addis Ababa), Tim was offered his choice of a desk job in Washington or a mine-clearing contract in Iraq. His wife agreed to return to Windhoek and honour his desire for a limited tour at the front.

In Baghdad, Tim headed a $7m project with eight civilian colleagues, a sniffer dog team and a crew of 90 Iraqis who, he said, were the best he had ever worked with - the most dedicated, the most disciplined. They gave him hope for the governmental handover because, Sunni, Shia and Kurd, they worked side by side in mortal danger with mutual trust.

In the "green zone" where coalition officials live and work in Baghdad, and in the field, Tim carried two pistols and a machine gun; I paid no attention to what kind or calibre. He spent his days blowing things up - some mines, but more often unexploded ordnance from US cluster bombs - to clear building sites for housing and schools and, in one instance, a soccer field.

In January my son came to Tallahassee for a day, en route from Namibia back to Baghdad by way of a de-mining conference in Tampa. He was gorgeous in Iraqi guise - tanned, bearded, and with a full head of hair in place of his usual crewcut; my husband Peter said that I fell in love with him all over again. The three of us shared the irony that Tim's brother Alex - that erstwhile punk and eternal pacifist - was now on the front line as supervisor of the Piccadilly Circus station of the London Underground, not only chasing buskers from the tunnels where he used to busk, but uniformed, drilling his crew in emergency evacuation.

Tim was missing his family in Namibia and thought his Iraqi team was on the verge of self-sufficiency. But he also worried that they would become targets of the insurgents in Iraq, and he was both despondent and enraged by the Bush administration and its regime (then under Paul Bremer) in Baghdad: "The corruption, the incompetence, the greed, the lies, the brute stupidity."

I confess I was elated to hear this. I did not then know that one of his men had lost a leg in a de-mining accident, nor that their compound was fired on daily, nor that he had been treated for depression in Ethiopia the year before. Nor did I suspect that his plane, while taking off from Baghdad, had had to weave to dodge a missile.

I had, like a good liberal mom, let him choose his views and his life, and now first-hand experience was bringing him round to mine. With better hindsight, my brother pointed out, "Tim was someone who thought that with ideals and a gun you could fix things." He had put his life at the service of a government that stood on just such a belief, and his disillusionment cut deep.

Back in Iraq, a note in his appointment calendar for January 10 reads: "All mistakes anyway everything crazy now I hope I can make it home safe." In late February, Tim completed his tour and rejoined his family in Windhoek, and he spent a couple of weeks in the jubilation of freedom.

But his re-entry to the low-level chaos of family life was hard. He was obsessively irritable in small ways. He became a news junkie. Madrid was attacked, the Spanish pulled out of Iraq, Falluja fell apart, hostages were taken. If all the contractors left, how could there be reconstruction? Tim's work would have come to nothing but danger for the troops who trusted him. He obsessively emailed his men, but they were busy staying alive and answered at a lag if at all. He consoled himself with hunting on a gamefarm in Namibia, sending proud pictures of himself with a downed warthog, a springbok, a magnificent kudu.

Then, on Thursday April 22, hunting with an unfamiliar rifle in the wrong light, he wounded a gemsbok that he could not track. On his return, inconsolable, he told his stepson that he had found a tooth, which meant that he had hit the animal in the face. He had had to leave it, like his men in Iraq, to its fate.

Tim shot himself on the Friday evening in the dining room of his house in the Windhoek hills called Eros. It was a clean kill. The trajectory took the bullet through Tim's cranium, a black and beige Herrera-patterned curtain, and out through a rectangular window pane, so that the best friend of his widow was able to pick up the pieces of his brain and her sister to mop the blood from the carpet.

A week later Alex would stand in front of that window in full McKenzie kilt regalia, on his way to his brother's funeral - bringing together Tim's Scottish heritage and his choice of Africa as homeland.

No one will ever know what exploded in Tim's mind. And no one will know how many children for decades to come in Namibia, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Iraq will retain all four limbs because my kid, who loved weapons, accidentally stumbled into the profession of getting rid of them.

We do know, however, from the Namibian police, that the last gun he held was a 45-calibre Norinco model 1911 (nicknamed "Government"), serial number 901233.

They prised it from his cold, dead hand.

It is always regrettable when young professional soldiers die serving their nation's interests and security. However it must be understood clearly that these deceased young men and women volunteered to serve as professional combatants and that includes the possibility of injury and death on the line of duty. I should suspect that such a possibilty has been made legally clear to them and their closest kins when they sign on the dotted line. Whether or not they have the mental and pyschological maturity to understand the risks is another question all together. If you can't stand the heat, don't stand near the stove.

In any case, be thankful that US casualties for this war have been relatively low compared to other previous or current conflicts worldwide. We should not get light-hearted over sensationalized news.

And how many more in the land between the rivers...if he had not--assuming he did in the first place?



In pictures: Iraqis react to handover
(From the BBC)

"He took our sons"

Kathem Moula Asim, 75
Retired but working as a local guard in the market

"I'm not sure. We haven't seen anything yet from this new government. The situation is in the hand of God and we respect our new leaders.

"May god keep Bush and Allawi, because Bush threw out Saddam and Allawi will give us safety and security.

"I think we should try and execute Saddam. He took our sons! He took my two sons from their colleges 25 years ago. I never heard from them again."

sigh.......with great power, comes great responsibility.....quote "spiderman"

unfortunately, after 911, uncle sam desperately needs an enemy........saddam fits the bill......so too bad for him......

unfortunately power is being abused...so the question is bush the saddam or saddam is bush or both? :(

Let's see if it's that easy to make a similar pronouncement when it's your son or daughter who's caught up in an IED ambush, eh?

I can't see how the reports are sensationalized. We talk everyday about the geopolitical effects, its about time we remember the human side of the war.

I've no problem with risking my neck for a worthy cause. Its the fact that these men and women and being killed and maimed for such ridiculous reasons like those we're seeing in Iraq that riles me.

Talking about lies--assuming there were any in the first place (lies entail intention to deceive), here's what one philosopher has to say:


(From techcentralstation)
Liberal Disingenuousness About the War in Iraq

By Keith Burgess-Jackson
Published 
06/29/2004 

Search though I may, I have yet to find the inferential path from "President Bush lied" to "The war in Iraq was unjustified" -- which makes me wonder why the first of these sentences is uttered so often. I keep hoping that an opponent of the war, of whom there are many, will supply the path. In the meantime, let's play devil's advocate. Suppose President Bush lied about (1) Iraqi involvement in the attacks of 9-11 and (2) the existence, in Iraq, of weapons of mass destruction. Suppose he really is a liar, as many liberals proclaim. It doesn't follow, without some powerful (but implausible) additional premises, that the war was wrong.

The Morality of Lying

Let's think this through. Is lying always wrong? There are three theoretical positions. The absolutist deontological position is that lying is always wrong, no matter how good the consequences of doing so. The moderate deontological position is that lying is intrinsically wrong (i.e., wrong in itself, because of the kind of act it is), but justified if enough good is produced (or enough harm prevented) thereby. In effect, the moderate deontologist endorses a rebuttable presumption against lying: "Lying is wrong unless X." The consequentialist position is that lying is not intrinsically wrong. That an act is a lie is morally irrelevant. There is no presumption against lying. Whether a lie or any other act is justified depends solely on its consequences.

To summarize: To an absolutist deontologist, lying is intrinsically wrong and can never be justified by its consequences. To a moderate deontologist, lying is intrinsically wrong but can be justified if enough good is produced thereby. To a consequentialist, lying is not intrinsically wrong. If it is wrong at all, it is extrinsically wrong -- because of what it brings about. To an absolutist deontologist, there is an irrebuttable presumption (what lawyers call a "conclusive" presumption) against lying. To a moderate deontologist, there is a rebuttable presumption against lying. To a consequentialist, there is no presumption against lying.

Applying the Theories

Suppose President Bush needed public support for the war in Iraq and believed he could get it -- mobilize it -- only by lying about the two things mentioned. This seems to be the liberal view, repeated ad nauseam. Only an absolutist deontologist would conclude, without more, that the war was unjustified, for, to that person, no amount of good can justify lying. The situation is different, however, for moderate deontologists and consequentialists. For the latter, there must be a calculation of the costs and benefits of the war for all concerned, compared with alternative actions. The consequentialist is not concerned with whether President Bush lied, only with whether his action -- however described -- maximized the good, impartially considered.

(Let me elaborate. The good in question is the good of all, not just of Americans. Consequentialists consider nationality, ethnicity, race, and religion morally irrelevant. These categories are of no intrinsic moral significance to them. Consequentialists also reject loyalties of all kinds, including those to family and friends. In deciding what to do, they say, one must be strictly impartial. The interests of an American count for no more (or less) than the interests of an Iraqi. The interests of my child count for no more (or less) than those of any other child; and if I am the one deciding what to do, I must remain strictly impartial between them. Many people consider this alone to be a sufficient reason to reject consequentialism.)

For the moderate deontologist, who endorses a rebuttable presumption against lying, the question is whether enough good was produced by the war to justify lying. This depends on the person's threshold. Some moderate deontologists have a high threshold; they require a great deal of good to justify a lie. Others have a low threshold; they require only some good to justify a lie. Moderate deontologists fall on a spectrum or continuum. Think of it this way. To an absolutist deontologist, lying has a moral weight of 1. To a consequentialist, lying has a moral weight of 0. Moderate deontologists occupy the space -- and it's a lot of space -- between 0 and 1.

A Hypothetical Case

To see how these moral theories might lead to different conclusions about the permissibility of war in Iraq, suppose the war makes the world a better place by 1,000,000 units. That is, after subtracting the bad from the good, taking everyone's interests into account, we're left with 1,000,000 units of good. No other action, let us say, would produce as much. Now suppose President Bush's hypothesized lies were necessary to produce that good. The absolutist deontologist says the war was unjustified. Evil may not be done that good may come. Lying is categorically prohibited. The consequentialist says the war was justified, since, ex hypothesi, it produced more overall good than any alternative action. To a consequentialist, the end justifies the means. Any means.

Moderate deontologists would disagree among themselves about the permissibility of the war. Those with thresholds higher than 1,000,000 units of good would side with the absolutist deontologists in condemning the war. They would say that 1,000,000 units of good is not enough to justify the lies told to produce that good. Moderate deontologists with lower thresholds might side with the consequentialists in commending the war, since it produced enough good, in their view, to outweigh the intrinsic badness of the lies. Where the threshold is set makes all the difference.

Note that different theorists can come to the same conclusion about the war. That S opposes the war doesn't mean that S is an absolutist deontologist. S may be a moderate deontologist who believes that his or her threshold hasn't been met. By the same token, that T supports the war doesn't mean that T is a consequentialist. T may be a moderate deontologist who believes that his or her threshold has been met. That two or more theories give the same result in particular cases doesn't make them the same theory. What makes theories distinct is that they don't always give the same result.

Remember: I'm only assuming, for the sake of argument, that the consequentialist calculus comes out in favor of the war. It could come out against the war. It all depends on the facts. What's distinctive about consequentialism is that it attaches no intrinsic moral significance to whether President Bush lied.

The Incompleteness of Liberal Thought

The point of these theoretical reflections is this: Even if President Bush lied about Iraqi involvement in the attacks of 9-11 and about the existence, in Iraq, of weapons of mass destruction, all the argumentative work remains to be done! Only absolutist deontologists, of whom I suspect there are few, say that the fact that President Bush lied disposes of the question whether the war was justified. Everyone else must examine the consequences of the war vis-à-vis the consequences of alternative courses of action-and that has nothing to do with President Bush.

Liberals are disingenuous. In their obsessive focus on the president, and specifically on whether he lied to the American people, they miss the larger issue of the justification for the war. They act as if they're all absolutist deontologists. They act as if no amount of good could possibly justify the telling of a lie.

In fact, almost no liberal who opposes the war is an absolutist deontologist. Liberals "adopt" absolutist deontology when it suits their purposes. When it doesn't, they adopt moderate deontology or consequentialism. This is theoretical cherry-picking. It is no more respectable than any other type of cherry-picking. In fact, it's less respectable, since it's either a rationalization of a moral judgment made on other grounds or a bald expression of hatred or some other vile emotion.


Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D., is a frequent contributor to Tech Central Station. Several of his columns have concerned the war in Iraq, which he supported from the beginning. He is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he teaches courses in Logic, Ethics, Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophy of Law. He has three blogs: AnalPhilosopher, Animal Ethics, and The Ethics of War.

Theory, no one is arguing that Saddam should be kept in place. But, lets go through point by point

- If it is right to violate international law to throw out a dictator, where do we stop? How about Mugabe? Kim Jong-il? What defines whether a leader should be thrown out? There are those who regard our Lee Kuan Yew as a dictator. So should there be forcible regime change in Singapore?

- Invading Iraq has not served the war on terror at all. If anything, it has galvanised the terrorists cause, become the best recruiting poster for them, and given respite for Al-Qaeda and their Taliban and other allies all over the world.

- Wheres the WMDs?

- What we have seen is replacing a tyrannical regimes trigger happy soldiers, with an occupiers trigger happy soldiers. For every Iraqi who loathes Saddam and likes the Americans, I would hazard to guess there are many more who loathe both.

- As a citizen of Singapore, would you prefer a foriegn occupying power over a (hypothetical) Singaporean regime you loathe. I pondered the question, and then I understood how Sadr's supporters feel.

Nice philosophical rubbish. But its always easier to spout such babble when one is sitting comfortably in his university office without having to worry about his own loved ones out there on the line, or even wonder how it would be like to have one.

I sympathize and understand what the families of the deceased say, write and do when such incidents occur; they are overwhelmed by grief and temporary lose control of their faculties. However when they have regained control of their selves and when time has soothed the mental anguish and wounds, it is important for them to reflect and think in retrospect on the blaming and shifting of responsibilty.

It is important that WE ALL reflect and think before pushing all blame and "what-ifs", and exonerating ourselves.

There have been higher casualties of this war and many other current conflicts that are not coalition in nationality. I say the news of US casualties have been sensationalized because news medias have been putting an abnormally higher focus on this issue that other contemporary ones (including non-combatants). I stand by my statement that US casualties for this war is considerably lighter than other conflicts.

Everybody dreams of fighting for a just cause. For some it is almost a spiritual calling, for others it's ego and romance. In either case the world doesn't work in black and white but we are all caught in its machinations whether we want to or not.

Bush is Bush and Saddam is Saddam. But both are evil in their own ways and neither is better than the other.

Bush had an enemy after 9-11. Osama and Al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, he found it wasn't easy to claim a clear cut victory over them which would make him popular at home with the voters, neither would securing Afghanistan give him the oil, strategic leverage in the MidEast or plum contracts for his big business cronies that an ouright victory over Saddam and Iraq would give him.

And he certainly didn't expect that his adventure would give Al-Qaeda the boost it did, although it wouldn't take a genius to figure that out even in March 2003. Then again, Bush Jr was always an imbecile

Only thing is, he is not finding out an outright victory there would not be a walk in the park either. Especially not without international support

You've stoked my curiousity there, when you said "However when they have regained control of their selves and when time has soothed the mental anguish and wounds, it is important for them to reflect and think in retrospect on the blaming and shifting of responsibilty."

How does the family of a lost soldier, be able to blame someone else, or absolve those responsible, for sacrificing their sons and daughters on such a shaky cause?

Yes, we should ALL reflect and think. Its useless for recriminations and what ifs, but those who are primarily responsible for this mess must do so more than most. About the consequences for their actions, what they must do to change it. The recriminations and what ifs come from their opponents because those responsible still stubbornly cling on to their flawed views, as if repeating them often enough would really make them the truth

I know casualties have been lighter, but that is not the point here. As I've said, try telling that to the bereaved families. Do you think it would lessen their pain? Especially if the cause is not even anywhere near just? And when their plight is being swept under the carpet.

I'm not saying the cause here is white, nor is it totally black. I'm enough of a realist to know this, but at the same time, this cause is not sufficiently anywhere near a light enough shade of grey to me, to be worth pursuing, never mind dying for.

The thought of Bush's pysche has been on my mind since I read what he scribbed on the note Condileeza Rice sent to him;

"Let Freedom Reign'

I believe many other readers share my puzzlement in which, is Bush kept totally in the dark on developments in Iraq by his staff or is he simply manically/pyschological disillusional; trapped in his own world and sp clouted by his own personal convictions that he can no longer differentiate between reality and his own mind?

Could he be "lying" intentionally to decieve or is he so lost in his mind that he believes his "lies" to be truths?

On the side note, an associate of mine was such a strong supporter of Bush's visions that he tried repeatingly to assure me that tons of WMD would be uncovered as soon as the first GI steps into Iraq. It has been a year and a half now and he still holds on to his point of view fervertly even though the American administration has distanced itself from WMDs.

A case of self-denial gone haywire? Like Bush?

But dear Viper, the point was not that anyone's lying is justified, but only that even if Bush did lied, it's still unclear if that alone makes the war unjustified. And the war might yet be unjustified, even if Bush had not lied.

But precisely because I am a Singaporean, I am not sure if it is all that helpful pontificating on the justifiability of the war now--it is over and done with. Wasn't it PM Goh himself who basically say that to the US Senate not too long ago: the urgent thing now is the rebuilding.

But perhaps closer to my own feelings on the point: wasn't it LKY himself who once said that when elephants make love, the grass always suffer. As a citizen of a *very* small country, I'd rather we live by our wits than count on the great powers to abide by justice alone. I say this precisely because I love my country.

As for your points:

(1) "If it is right to violate international law to throw out a dictator, where do we stop? How about Mugabe? Kim Jong-il? What defines whether a leader should be thrown out? There are those who regard our Lee Kuan Yew as a dictator. So should there be forcible regime change in Singapore?"

Begging the question here: has the US violated international law? Who says I agree with that premise? (Further note: You seem torn between two prospects: (i) the US has violated international law in throwing out an acknowledged dictator, but it is possible to do this without violating international law; (ii) international law categorically disallows any such thing as throwing out a dictator of another country. You can't seriously believe in (ii) can you? That would mean the Allies did wrong in invading Nazi Germany, etc., etc.) Interestingly, some do think that the US's actions were "legally justified by United Nations Security Council Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441" (see John Keegan here)

(2) "- Invading Iraq has not served the war on terror at all. If anything, it has galvanised the terrorists cause, become the best recruiting poster for them, and given respite for Al-Qaeda and their Taliban and other allies all over the world."

Is there anything short of radical change in the Arab countries--read, the building of a successful Islamic but prosperous, liberal democratic model smack in the middle of the Gulf--that will resolve the issue of terrorism in the long term? (Apart from the destruction of Isreal, of course.) And is there anything that will infuriate the terrorists more--in the short to medium run--than exactly that? Put it this way, even if the US acted with the full blessing of the UN, etc., etc., there will be no guarantee that the roots of terrorism will be eradicated. They can still goof up. This is a matter that remains to be played out...and many things can still go wrong. I'm going to give it more time. (Besides, your argument *could* have the following counter model: closing in on the Japanese homeland (in 1945) only galvanised the Japanese will to defend their country and become the best recruiting poster for the Kamikaze squads...etc.)

(3) "Wheres the WMDs?"

No where to be found, of course, despite what every official of the previous administration (read Clinton), and even the Russians!, has been telling us all these years. But this is besides the point: it assumes that if the war is justified, it can only be justified on account of WMDs.

(4) "What we have seen is replacing a tyrannical regimes trigger happy soldiers, with an occupiers trigger happy soldiers. For every Iraqi who loathes Saddam and likes the Americans, I would hazard to guess there are many more who loathe both."

Aren't we forgetting the Kurds? Frankly, I really don't know. My own guess is that if the Iraqis do not like the Americans, it will be for very different reasons than that vis-a-vis Saddam. Since I am not in the country itself, I can't say much, except that the marines who prompted the foundation of The Spirit Of America Foundation just don't seem particularly trigger happy to me.

(5) "As a citizen of Singapore, would you prefer a foriegn occupying power over a (hypothetical) Singaporean regime you loathe. I pondered the question, and then I understood how Sadr's supporters feel."

It really depends...if the local dictator is *bad* enough, I might find it better to identify with the foreign power. Yes, yes, people often tend to prefer the local bully to the foreign guy who comes to trash him. At least he's local. In that sense, of course I can 'understand' how Sadr's supporters feel (not that there are many of them left these days, so it seems. When's the last time they made news?). But that does not mean that they are justified to feel so, or that they won't change their mind later on. But this is really a non sequitur--what's it got to do with the justifiability of the war anyway?

I have read news articles and have heard soundbytes from the families of deceased servicemen and contractors (come what will). And they all push the blame solely on the US military and the administration. It is true that the administration as well as US military operating procedures have led to the death of those in question - deaths that could have been avoided. But we must also understand that once the servicemen dorns his uniform and pledges his services to his nation, he automatically becomes an asset to potential tragedies which in this case, have happened.

To put it bluntly (coldly tackless if you might like), the administration cannot "take your life" if you had not earlier agreed to be part of the "team" You sow what you reap although at times what you get may not turn out to be what you want.

It is my experience that after hurting, reflection and a correct analyse of all major contributions to that hurt usually proves more benefical than long-term "self-denial" of a portion of the responsibility - no matter how small. In any case their plight is not swept under the carpet. With all the news media and hype, as well as the fact that the US never denied that they died, the intrusive inflation of their grief is more likely.

To resort to a cliche; it is a vicious world we live in. We might not be able to stomach some of those cold unfair events around us (be it bad presidents or tragic deaths), but that does not mean we are free from it.

And least I be misunderstood, which I'm sure I will be: my heart goes out to every family who lost loved ones in this war. I cannot even begin to feel what they feel, not having gone through such loss myself. I'm sure many of them will be angry with Bush, with Saddam, with the Americans, with the Baathists...I can only pray now that Iraq will have a future, that ordinary Iraqis will have a decent living. When I think of human costs these days, my mind can only focus on the children. The world may yet bear some small part of the *cost* to make their lives just that little better, this side of Heaven.


The 1st Marine Division seeks school supplies, frisbees and soccer balls for Iraqi Kids
$325 provides a supply kit for a classroom and its students.
$100 buys 110 flying discs ("Frisbees").

And if you think that I am shamelessly appealing to emotion here, I am! Anything to get someone to do something for these kids!

Theory

The past, now and the future, everything that nations do or did was, is & will be for the their national interests, nothing more, nothing less.

Int'l laws and regulation will be thrown out of the window when it concern national interest.

The US believed or maybe not even sure & told a lie that Saddam has WMD , invaded Iraq & overthrown him!

Why did the US do it?

Simple, Saddam is a threat to them with or without WMD!!!

Why are they disregarding int'l laws?

In the real world , power is the laws, especially concerning national interest.
Yes , they will be political outcry but it will be temporal.
For example , the Israeli pre-emptive strike against Iraqi nuclear reactor in the 80s, last year, a similar strike against a terrorist camp in Syria.
But now , nobody actually talk abt it and int'l relation still remain as before.

Afterall , nations are looking at the future not the past, after Operation Iraqi Freedom, nations will continue to work together for their own national interests, ME countries will still be engaging the US just like now, and the world still turns.

The Allied make the wrong decision in supporting US..it is now for them to help rebuild Iraq as a punishment...
we cant leave Iraq now..to let them rot n become a second Afghanistan..
we all know that now Iraq have turn into a terrorists magnet..to leave Iraq is the 2nd greatest mistake(1st was to invade them or for some liberate them)...of the past years..

if Bush never invade Iraq..those dead American soldiers might still be around...
more will die in the process of rebuilding of Iraq..

sometime it just piss me off when our own Govt make the dumb mistake of supporting Bush..
n we have to pay for it in some way or another...

The impression I recieved from other forums where the majority are South Americans and Northern Continental European is that they are infuriated by Bush's claim of a job well done in Iraq and his persistence that neutral states and those that opposed the invasion have the "responsibility" of rebuilding Iraq.

I agree that the Allied Coalition that supported Bush's expedition and contributed in one way or another should play the chief role in the financial and security rehabitation of the nation. Singapore likewise.

Theory, you're right. Whether the war is justified to a individual, or not, depends on the individual's point of view. I've made my point of view obvious, especially in light of what has happened since Bush declared victory (prematurely as it turned out) on May 1 2003.

Well, I do not disagree that the most important thing in Iraq is rebuilding. I'd take that to having the likes of Zarqawi running loose all over Iraq carrying out his murderous and twisted agenda. But the fact remains that, IMO, the Americans made serious mistakes from the moment invading Iraq crossed Bush's mind after 9/11, up to this day. The problem is that as long as they continue making those mistakes, the problems will only be compounded and rebuilding efforts will only run into more problems like those we are seeing now.

This is again where we agree on the principle but disagree on the actions. There are a lot of countries who disagreed with the invasion and made it clear. And they are getting by just fine. Chile is a prime example, and what happened to them after opposing the invasion is a clear example of why our leaders' and media claims that being on America's side in morally grey areas is needed to survive are plain lies.

Yes it has violated International Law. By invading a sovereign nation is in itself without a UN mandate is a violation of international law. John Keegan and you seem to think that UNSC Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 gave the green light to invade in 2003. I disagree, and would like to know which part of the Resolutions gave the US to right to invade in 2003. In fact, 1441 specfically mentioned that any military action against Iraq required a further UNSC Resolution, which the US tried, but failed to get before the invasion.

The main reason why I opposed the war is simple: The job against Al-Qaeda was not finished. Yet Bush saw fit to decide that despite extremely shaky evidence of WMD and links to terrorism, it was needed to take attention, troops and pressure away from Al-Qaeda. The is the primary reason, the questionable evidence and lack of international consensus merely beefed up my opposition.

No, in the long run there will nothing else. But the way the Americans have gone about this, by imposing their will on another country to bring about this change, is not the way. It just brings back the saying in Vietnam, "We had to destroy the town to save it."

Giving it more time is of course a good idea, but without a radical sea-change in the American mindset, it is difficult to see how the Yanks are going to make things easier.

You'd have to bring that up to the Americans then, because until it was apparent that their serach for those WMDs and links to Al-Qaeda were going nowhere, did they bring up the need to throw out Saddam the dictator.

Well, as you've said, its too early to tell. Because can you guarantee that if the Kurds do not get the amount of autonomy they want in Norther Iraq, will they not pick up arms again?

I've no wish to denigrate the work of the Spirit of America Foundation. But for every one of them, there are always the Lynndie Englands and likes of these morons.

More than a bit, when you think of the (as it turned out, extremely) optimistic assessments that the Americans would be welcomed with open arms, particularly by the Shi'ites.

He who created the mess, should clean it up. 'Nuff said

Interesting, I never thought our govt is by default 'on America's side', unless there's something to be had for ourselves. In any case, our contribution is on the small side, and it's not as if a tremendous amount of resources was sunk into Iraq. (I could be wrong, but as far as I can see, what resources we did commit actually made for good exposure for our people.) I would have wished Singaporeans to have been more able to do more toward the rebuilding, but not sure how that can be done.

But perhaps more to the point: Chile is not surrounded by Islamic countries, we are. The govts of these countries are fine, as they go; but radicals that wish to do us harm do exist. On that account, US action in Iraq--speaking purely from a machiavellian point of view--is actually more closely aligned with our long term interest.

But needless to say: they can still goof up, big time.

But what if its the UN that goofed up this time, that Saddam's repeated defiance of its resolutions makes a mockery of the UN unless it acted forcefully. The problem here poses a dilemma which ever way the US goes. If the UN continues to let Saddam get away, its own authority is dimished. If the US steps in over the wishes of the UN, the UN's authority is dimished.

To be frank about it, I cited Keegan not exactly because I fully agree with his take on the issue, but only to point out that some do hold that point the view. I am not a fan of international law--a law that cannot be enforced is no law. (It may yet be a moral rule of some sort.) But this perhaps gets us to deeper levels of disagreements.

Agreed: in the sense that if all there is to justify the way is WMDs and the supposed links with Al-Qaeda, then the US acted in a way that is neither justified not obviously to their interest in the war against terror. It really is a shame that both Bush and Blair argued for the war on these terms. Even before the invasion itself, I thought that a much better case would have been a humanitarian one...but that's another controversial point in itself.

But is there really no connection with the war on terror? In hitting Iraq, the US is obviously not targeting Al-Qaeda cells. But can the latter really be done, to any long term effects? As I see it, the roots of terror goes too deep, and nothing short of a fundamental change in the ME would be of any long term effect...the sort of fundamental change that can only come about by something akin to what the US is now doing (as I always say: the alternative is the complete destruction of Israel, that will apease the radical islamist, but hardly a viable or just option).

Not pretty, but I not sure if there really are many other options for the US. If not Bush, someone one else will have to do it, eventually.

Absolutely. But I can only hope and pray. As for the likes of L. Englands, its a real shame and nothing excuse them. I am optimistic that they are not representative of the average GI; that the folks at SOA are better representatives. Call me naive--I have no arguments here--only the *impression* that the Americans I encounter have been surprisingly large-hearted. And I have seen a lot of them, since I have been living there for some 3 years now. (Back now though--they are a great people, but they can't do a proper laksa!)

Theory

It should be noted that for totalitarian states like Iraq, the chances of the government acting in cahoots with fundamentalist groups are remote, in fact I should think it would be a far lesser possibility than in western democratic countries.

The last thing a despotic dictator needs is another faction that would wrestle his grip on the base of his power - absolute control over the people. Fundamentalism threatens to do that by appealing to the masses' spiritual needs and it would lead to nothing more but a power struggle at the end. No dictator would tolerate any rival from syphoning his resources.

Guys, I think it is not all Bush's fault. He is just a puppet of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and some other Hawks within the Republican.

Iraq wasn't totalitarian (the USSR was). It was authoritarian. (There's a difference.) And as for authoritarian regimes, Saudi Arabia would be the counter example to what you've just said--a authoritarian regime encouraging, via its Madrasas, the propogation of Wassabism? The truth in what you say is this: it is likely for a fundamentalist group to survive within a democratic society, because of the openess and toleration. But, this doesn't mean that individual dictators or authoritarian regimes may not be interested in giving sanctuary to particular fundamentalist groups (Lybia, Iran, Iraq, Sudan, etc). Furthermore, the mostly likely place for a fundamentalist terrorist group to get their hands on serious weapon (WMD) would be from a sponsoring dictator, such as Saddam.

Theory

(from The New York Post Online; by a Marine reservist who served in Iraq)

HOW MEDIA GET IRAQ WRONG
By ERIC M. JOHNSON

July 2, 2004 -- IRAQ veterans often say they're confused by U.S. news cover age, because their experience differs so greatly from what journalists report. Soldiers and Marines point to the slow, steady progress in almost all areas of Iraqi life and wonder why they don't get much notice — or in many cases, any notice at all.

Part of the explanation is Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post. Chandrasekaran's crew generates a relentlessly negative stream of articles from Iraq. Last week, he had a Pulitzer-bait series called "Promises Unkept: The U.S. Occupation of Iraq."

The grizzled foreign-desk veteran — who until 2000 was covering dot-com companies — now sits in judgment over a world-shaking issue, in a court whose rulings echo throughout the media landscape.

He finds the Bush administration guilty. Such a surprise. Before major combat operations were over, Chandrasekaran was already quoting Iraqis proclaiming the U.S. operation a failure.

Reading his dispatches from April 2003, you can already see his meta-narrative take shape: Basically, that the Americans are clumsy fools who don't know what they're doing, and Iraqis hate them. This meta-narrative informs his coverage and the coverage of the reporters he supervises, who rotate in and out of Iraq.

How do I know this? Because my fellow Marines and I witnessed it with our own eyes. Chandrasekaran showed up in the city of Kut last April, talked to a few of our officers and toured the city for a few hours. He then got back into his air-conditioned car and drove back to Baghdad to write about the local unrest.

"The Untouchable 'Mayor' of Kut," his article's headline blared the next day. It described a local, Iranian-backed troublemaker named Abbas Fadhil, who was squatting in the provincial government headquarters. He had gathered a mob of people with nothing better to do, told them to camp out in the headquarters compound, and there they sat, defying the Marines of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

Chandrasekaran was very impressed with the little usurper: " 'We thank the Americans for getting rid of Saddam's regime, but now Iraq must be run by Iraqis,' Fadhil thundered during a meeting today with his supporters in the building's spacious conference room. 'We cannot allow the Americans to rule us from this office' . . . Fadhil has set up shop in an official building and appears to have rallied support across this city of 300,000 people.

"The refusal of Marine commanders to recognize Fadhil's new title has fueled particularly intense anti-American sentiments here," Chandrasekeran continued. "In scenes not seen in other Iraqi cities, U.S. convoys have been loudly jeered. Waving Marines have been greeted with angry glares and thumbs-down signs."

Readers must have concluded that Kut was on the verge of exploding, ready to throw out the despised American infidel invaders and install their new "mayor" as their beloved leader.

What utter rubbish. In our headquarters, we had a small red splotch on a large map of Kut, representing the neighborhood that supported Abbas Fadhil. When asked about him, most citizens of Kut rolled their eyes. His followers were mainly poor, semi-literate and not particularly well-liked. They were marginal in every sense of the word, and they mattered very little in the day-to-day life of a city that was struggling to get back on its feet.

We knew the local sentiment intimately, because as civil affairs Marines, our job was to help restore the province's water, electricity, medical care and other essentials of life. Our detachment had teams constantly coming and going throughout the city, and Chandrasekeran could have easily accompanied at least one of them.

Since he didn't, he couldn't see how the Iraqis outside of the red splotch reacted to us. People of every age waved and smiled as we rumbled past (except male youths, who, like their American counterparts, were too cool for that kind of thing.) Our major security problem was keeping friendly crowds of people away from us so we could spot bad guys.

None of those encouraging things made it into the article. Nor did anything about how we had been helping to fix the city's problems as soon as we arrived. Just a quick-and-dirty sensationalistic piece about a local Islamist thug bravely going toe-to-toe with the legendary U.S. Marines. The general reaction to Chandrasekeran's article was either laughter or dumb bewilderment.

Soon afterwards, a Marine commander met privately with Fadhil and told him he would be forcefully removed if he did not leave the government building. Fadhil, chastened, asked if he could slither into exile without the appearance of coercion, so he could save face. The commander agreed. Suddenly faced with a real confrontation, the "mayor" had backed down, and he left without any riots or bloodshed. The Americans took over the office that Fadhil said we should never occupy.

The Post didn't cover any of that, either.

Don't take my word for it that the Post's reporting is substandard and superficial. Take the word of Philip Bennett, the Post's assistant managing editor for foreign news. In a surprisingly candid June 6 piece, he admits that "the threat of violence has distanced us from Iraqis." Further, "we have relied on Iraqi stringers filing by telephone to our correspondents in Baghdad, and on embedding with the military. The stringers are not professional journalists, and their reports are heavy on the simplest direct observation."

Translation: We are reprinting things from people we barely know, from a safe location dozens of miles away from the fighting.

Bennett flatly concedes that they have a "dim picture" of what is happening in Iraq (not that you would know it from the actual news articles he approves for publication). "The people of Iraq . . . are leading their country, and ours, down an uncertain path. This is a story waiting to be told."

Waiting to be told? They have four or five full-time reporters there at any given time. What are they doing, if they're not telling the story of Iraq's new birth?

Bennett might have added that not only are the reporters "distanced" from Iraqis, they're distanced from Iraq itself. Covering it from Baghdad is like covering California from a secure bunker in south-central Los Angeles.

Chandrasekeran's meta-narrative admits of no ambiguity. For him and his reporters, they report in straightforward, declarative sentences, with none of the caveats that Bennett mentions. The Americans are still bumbling, the Iraqis continue to seethe. So it shall be in The Washington Post — until Iraq succeeds and they can no longer deny it, just like journalists were forced to admit reality at the end of the Cold War. Or else their words will have their effect, and Western journalists have to flee the country as it disintegrates.

Since I saw Rajiv Chandrasekaran's integrity up close, I haven't believed a word he writes, or any story coming out of the bureau he runs. You shouldn't, either.

Eric M. Johnson, a writer in Washington, D.C., participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom as a Marine Corps reservist.

-----

Well, for every veteran who supports the war, theres always those who opposed.

Veterans oppose war in Iraq as deceitful

BY R.A. DYER

Knight Ridder Newspapers

http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee...ion/9101236.htm

AUSTIN, Texas - (KRT) - The U.S. government has deceitfully committed the country to an unjust and costly war in Iraq, returning soldiers from Iraq alleged Wednesday.

Gathered with a handful of peace activists outside the Texas Capitol, two Iraqi war veterans and a former military chaplain in Vietnam called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Capt. David Harris, a resident of Arlington, Texas, who recently returned from a 14-month tour in Iraq, said he began to oppose the war after it became apparent that Iraq possessed no stores of biological or chemical weapons.

"There was a belief amongst the troops that we were going there to take down Saddam Hussein because he had weapons of mass destruction," said Harris, 33. "We're 16 months after the invasion, and still not a one has been found. That would put some skepticism in anybody."

The active-duty U.S. Army reservist, who served as a logistics officer in Iraq, said poor planning, training and resource allocation constantly jeopardized his unit. The 12-year armed forces veteran said he plans to submit his resignation to avoid a second call-up to Iraq.

"I was informed last Wednesday that I might be on the list...and put into a unit that's going to be deployed," Harris said. "My resignation is already typed up. After 12 years, it's hard to walk away from it. But I can't see doing another year in Iraq."

Harris teaches ROTC at the University of Texas at Arlington. According to information provided by the Veterans for Peace organization, his decorations include the Bronze Star and the Global War on Terror medal.

But Harris said: "I just don't agree that we should have this endless war on terror with no end. I don't think we can change the landscape or the people in Iraq in one year, five years or 10 years."

Another Iraqi war veteran, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Michael Hoffman, said, "The war has been based on lies from the start: there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Hoffman was among the first batch of Marines to cross into Iraq during the March 2003 invasion. With the recent handover of national sovereignty, U.S. forces now must fight behind ill-equipped and often untrained Iraqi security forces, Hoffman said.

"It seems that the handover is a sham as well," said Hoffman, 24, a resident of Morrisville, Pa., who drew applause from a handful of peace activists during the noon gathering.

Hoffman, who joined the Marines in February 1999, was deployed to Kuwait and traveled as far north in Iraq as Tikrit before returning to the United States on May 10, 2003.

Hoffman said he remains on inactive reserve.

San Antonio resident James C. Berbiglia, a retired military chaplain who served in Vietnam, said that with the creation of new U.S. military bases in Iraq, it appears that the United States plans to stay for a long time.

"Even if the mission is accomplished, we are still losing people," Berbiglia said. "If we do what our present administration says, we'll have 2,500 dead Americans over there in two years. ... We're for peace. We're for getting them (U.S. soldiers) home."

So far, more than 800 service members have been killed in Iraq - including more than 60 from Texas. More than 5,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded

Well, the line that the government tried to sell was that we had to support America in Iraq because it was 1) Part of the War on Terror, 2) We had to stop Saddam and his WMDs from threatening the world and 3) There were benefits for Singapore (eg the FTA, which was often cited).

(1) and (2) we have already dealt with, so as for the benefits with regards to FTA were concerned, the line I saw in the local media cited Singapore and Chile, which our media trumpeted that we got to sign the deal with Bush at the White House while Chile signed it with a Trade Rep in some southern state and it's ratification might be delayed, apparently due to its opposition to the war. And this was used to show that there were benefits in Singapore supporting the war. Alas, it was all a sound and light (but no substance) show, for the FTA of both Singapore and Chile were ratified on the same day

I will not argue against the fact the deployment was good for our guys, but had they deployed to Afghanistan instead, would the effect have been less? I seriously doubt so

As to the fact that we're surrounded by Islamic countries, I don't see what that has to do with it. All our neighbours face the same threats from the terrorists, threats which the Americans are as interested to be rid off, whether or not the countries the terrorists are operating from support the Iraq war or not.