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What Iowans Can Do About our Wars
by Paul Deaton
“As Iowans we need to press our elected
officials to bring a swift end to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
According to the Washington
Post, during the past week, five drone missile strikes have killed dozens
of people in the North Waziristan tribal area of Pakistan. U.S. military
commanders are especially concerned about the Haqqani network, an Afghan
Taliban group with links to al-Qaida, which operates from the area. It is
believed that the drone strikes were launched in retaliation for the December
30 attack that killed seven CIA employees in Khost province, just across the
border from North Waziristan. We don’t know whether those killed were
combatants, children or civilians. Given the other things vying for our attention
and the breadth of today’s news, few people in the United States care, nor will
care, about the now deceased foreigners in North Waziristan.
In war, body counts are used in military planning and
propaganda. During the Vietnam War, the army used enemy body counts as evidence
that the United States was winning the war. Ho Chi Minh
said, “You can kill ten of our men for every one we kill of yours. But
even at those odds, you will lose and we will win.” His statement proved
to be accurate and applies to both the French and the United States in their
defeats in Vietnam.
It was widely reported that General Tommy Franks said “we don’t do body counts”
during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Critics claimed that General Franks was
attempting to hide bad news about the war. Supporters said he was trying to
avoid a pitfall of the Vietnam era regarding body counts. There are various
estimates of how many people have been killed in the Iraq war. The number
has been estimated at more than 600,000 Iraqis killed.
So what is my point? As Iowans, we need to press our elected
officials to bring a swift end to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When I hear
from the Washington Post that “a suspected drone fired two missiles at a house
in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, killing seven people,” I wonder
about those people and the lives they might have had. Were they bad guys? Were
they guys at all? How long can we accept the anonymous deaths of people half a
world away without picking up the phone to call our elected officials and tell
them that these wars need to come to an end?
I urge you to go on-line and write your elected officials in
Washington and ask them to bring an end to what seems like an endless stream of
deaths of people not that much different from you and me.
~Paul Deaton is a native Iowan living in rural Johnson County. Check
out his blog, Big Grove Garden.
E-mail Paul Deaton
Write our elected officials now and ask them to end our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:
First District Congressman Bruce Braley
Second District Congressman Dave Loebsack
Third District Congressman Leonard Boswell
Blog For Iowa 