Letters and Packages to Troops in the Field
Since the Coalition forces are now committed to the destruction of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, it’s time for those who claim a moral equivalence between the Coalition armies and the vicious thugs defending Saddam Hussein be taken on. I’ve been reading some of the German, Austrian, and French papers online and am sickened by the references to “resistance fighters,” as if the people who are executing American POWs, killing Iraqi deserters, and firing on Iraqi civilians are akin to those who took part in the Warsaw uprising. In fact, the Fedayeen Saddam are far more like the SS units who tortured and massacred Hitler’s enemies.
My views are not, in general, affected by my personal interests. But how strongly I feel about them may be. And in this case, I have family in Iraq (or on their way) in both the United States Army and the Royal Artillery. I don’t know precisely what can be sent through the post, but, in addition to letters, I have been sending small items such as (sealed and unopened) packets of chewing gum, small pocket packs of unscented baby wipes and small sealed plastic packs of cotton ear buds (both to counter the sand and dust), sun block and lip balm, and pocket packs of tissues. (Items should be very small, I’m told, and in commercially sealed packages.) I encourage others with friends or family in Kuwait or Iraq to send letters and small packets, as well. (Don’t send packages to service members in general; but if a family member or a friend has a military address, they deserve your support.) Anyone who wishes to send email letters of support to British forces can do so through www.bfpo.org.uk; I am searching for the equivalent web address for the U.S. Armed Forces. (I ask anyone who knows where on the web such information can be found, please drop me a note.) A good way to provide humanitarian relief to the people who have been starved, brutalized, and oppressed by the Iraqi state is to support Mercy Corps.
This war was a mistake. But now that it’s been started, probably the worst thing that could happen would be for the Ba’athist regime to remain in power. The monsters who drop terrified people alive into plastic shredding machines, who manufacture vast quantities of chemical and biological weapons, and who have been attacked twice, cannot be allowed to remain in power, or even alive. And one way to speed their removal from power is for the armed forces who are doing the fighting against them to know that they are on the right side and that they are supported.
Postscript: At least one reader missed the phrase “and who have been attacked twice” in the paragraph just above. Lots of dictators around the planet torture and murder their subjects, but that does not justify a military conflict with the U.S. But a dictatorship that the U.S. has already attacked twice has to be finished off. It’s a matter of life and death for all of us that Saddam Hussein be removed from power and either killed or dropped into a very deep hole in Guantanamo Bay. It’s not about high school debating points (“didn’t Donald Rumsfeld meet with Hussein?,” etc.) or a game. It’s a matter of life and death for literally millions of people.