Poor priorities
Andrew Sullivan on Fallujah:
The assault on Falluja is about to begin. It's worth putting aside all our divisions at this point in praying that our forces succeed with the minimum of civilian casualties.
What, these civilians?
These civilians?
These civilians?
Among the worst consequences of the Iraq War and the subsequent absence of weapons of mass destruction has been the way the justification for war has now centred around the Iraqi people. To make this justification work, the Iraqis have been portrayed in places as virtual demi-gods, a whole nation of ancient Athenians, ready to democratise the Middle East by their example. I'm not so confident. This is not a people on the verge of Western liberal democracy, and it is not a people whose lives should be paramount over those of Western troops.
A huge civilian death toll would undoubtedly be a bad thing. But if I were Andrew Sullivan I'd be saving my prayers for the American soldiers engaged in this thankless operation, not those pictured above.
