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Because They Can "Target of opportunity", the phrase that was used to describe the opening salvo pretty much sums up "Operation Iraqi Freedom". "No fly" zones and inspectors on the ground guaranteed that Iraq posed no threat, but the hapless country was ruled by an unsavory tyrant, and oh yes, then there was the oil. Iraq was sitting on the world's second largest oil reserve and the combination qualified this unfortunate nation as a "target of opportunity". By Merle Borg 05/02/03: (Information Clearing House) While growing up in Kansas, a neighbor once asked if I knew why dogs lick themselves. The grinning farmer hooked his thumbs in his overalls and said, "Because they can, boy, because they can." In a tragic way that answer applies to much of the obscenity in this world. It is why settlers slaughtered buffalo and Indians on those beautiful Kansas prairies. It is why terrorists took down the World Trade center, and it could be why battered Toyota pickups are now scurrying about the desert, picking up bloated bodies. Like many things in life, reasons are not immediately known. For a good fifty years, arms merchants and generals whispered "spreading communism" into our ears then watched us tremble while we got out our checkbooks at budget appropriation time. Like everyone else in that budget, they had programs to sell. When the Viet Cong started slipping into South Vietnam, they told us about the "domino" theory. If South Vietnam were lost to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would topple like a row of dominoes. We sent troops and for years we watched nightly briefings where stiffly erect generals told us how we were winning the war and the hearts and minds of the people. More than a few of our sons were lost but we kept winning until one day our generals mumbled something about peace with dignity and scrambled on to helicopters and came home. The embarrassment is that in the decades since then, Vietnam has not tried to spread anything beyond its borders. The "domino" thing was just a sales pitch. Fear of communism eventually lost its marketability and we began to hear about "weapons of mass destruction". The danger inherent in these doomsday pitches however, is that occasionally we elect an administration simple enough to believe them, and callous enough to answer in kind. By the skin of it's teeth, the paranoid right was in power when, for whatever reason, murderous fanatics commandeered airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center. The fateful elements of disaster were pushed together and we again found ourselves at war. None of us really expected this one in Iraq. Saddam had caused trouble, but not terrorism and not with us. Of the two deadliest acts of terror in our country, one came from within and was done with farm fertilizer, and those airliners were commandeered with pocketknives. Fertilizer and knives are not exactly weapons of mass destruction and Iraq had nothing to do with either, but once again our B52s were sent to bomb a tiny country, and a new generation of Americans learned what it is to kill. "Target of opportunity", the phrase that was used to describe the opening salvo pretty much sums up "Operation Iraqi Freedom". "No fly" zones and inspectors on the ground guaranteed that Iraq posed no threat, but the hapless country was ruled by an unsavory tyrant, and oh yes, then there was the oil. Iraq was sitting on the world's second largest oil reserve and the combination qualified this unfortunate nation as a "target of opportunity". Embedded journalists covered the war and we got to see what it felt like in "real time". It lacked the rehearsed polish of WW2 newsreels but the reporting was the same; America's effort to liberate an oppressed people and stories about our bravery and the enemy's depravity. The segments finished with pictures of grieving families back home and lots of flags. The "video game" aspect of our killing machine was new however; nose-cone views of targets, horrendous explosions, then great clouds of dust and debris and vaporized body fluids. Among those objecting to our world vision we were told would be the elite "Republican Guard" and we expected a hard fight from them. When informed that ordinary Iraqi soldiers and citizens were resisting, we convinced each other that families were being held hostage and would be killed if the fathers didn't fight. It's not impossible to believe the part about hostages, but it does stretch credulity to believe that anyone threatening children would ever hand their father a gun. The missing truth forty years ago was that Vietnam was involved in a civil war when with the acquiescence of our media, we allowed arms merchants and generals to turn it into a bloodbath. Afghanistan and Iraq now share the same tragic fate and they still face civil war. The whole Mid-east could erupt and there are people in this country who would not see this a bad thing. For them the lesson of Vietnam was that we can maintain supremacy and promote instability around the world if we get in and out quick, and call it something noble. History, however has been remarkably severe with those stumbling onto Arab land and that part isn't over. It will not be confined to the Mid-east. When we went into Afghanistan and Iraq, were told it was to combat terrorism, to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and to establish democracy, but like "dominos" those reasons are now falling away. What we do not yet know is the real purpose. It could have been the oil. It could have been our arms merchants and hawks. It could have been people bent on "world domination" or those wishing for "Armageddon"; reasons so perverse that they have us hoping it was the oil. History will one day reveal why B52s are sent to pound tiny countries into submission. In the meantime all she will say is, "Because they can, boy, because they can."
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