"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well, it were done quickly." -- William Shakespeare's "Macbeth."
DETROIT -- The casualties of war, we should all pray, are few, and the violence ends quickly, so that the long, difficult task of rebuilding Iraq can begin. Equally demanding will be dealing with the new role the United States has undertaken as the triggerman for "preventive" war and the powerful lord and master of the murky geopolitics of the Middle East.
It should be no surprise that the nation with overwhelming military might is ravaging targets in Baghdad, meeting little resistance and forcing hopeless Iraqi forces to surrender in masses. Iraq is a third-rate military power, significantly less potent than before Gulf War I and greatly diminished from 12 years of sanctions that have denied it the resources needed to rebuild its military.
The strategy hopefully will spare lives, but the spectacle remains disturbing. The president finally executed the order to carry out the war plan he initiated on Sept. 17, 2001.
All the subsequent debate and UN involvement was a public exercise to seek broader, yet unachieved, ratification for a decision made long ago that had nothing to do with terrorism.
The United States and the Brits were going to go it alone no matter what. The two former foes in colonial conflict are now joined in a new era of imperial power aimed at exerting long-term hegemony and influence of a new kind in the Middle East that, perhaps just by coincidence, protects and enhances vital U.S. and British economic interests in the region.
While George W. Bush and Tony Blair were able to convince enough people in their respective countries that Saddam was an imminent threat to world peace and entwined with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda (neither are true), the media-abetted propaganda campaign was sufficient to provide enough political cover for the bold move.
The first burst of war last Wednesday night was aimed at one of Saddam's protected bunkers in Baghdad. Television jumped all over the first blast and people watching were transfixed, expecting that the all-out aerial assault on Baghdad was underway. It wasn't.
Thursday morning, you could hear sighs of disappointment -- people who stayed up late expecting the fireworks display they were tantalized for, but which just didn't happen. "Gosh, we were waiting for shock and awe. Where was it?"
One of the joys and burdens of journalism is giving the events a human dimension, a real face. It's fun to share the triumphs, piercing to share the sorrows.
I spent time that morning with families of soldiers sent to fight in the Gulf. As much as I abhor war, I have enormous respect for the brave men and women who risk their lives in military service, and find it uplifting to know the high quality of so many young people in uniform, including so many women who are increasingly showing their importance.
Tranace Wilcoxson is worried sick about her daughter, D'Acea, who is an Army reservist called up for active duty in January. D'Acea graduated from Benedictine High School in Detroit and her mother told me she signed up for the reserves for two reasons: 1. She loves her country and would sacrifice to protect it; and 2. Military service would help in her education and her plan to become a lawyer.
Tranace says her daughter called her every day from Fort Riley, Kan., where she was preparing to depart for Kuwait. But the worried mother hadn't heard from her daughter since Tuesday and feared she had shipped out without being able to call right away.
"She's my baby and I never thought a child of mine would be going off to war," Tranace said.
The pain of uncertainty is one of war's most pervasive wounds. Tranace Wilcoxson and parents like her across our nation live with that pain every day now.
Then I was off to Warren, Mich., to see Louis and Dianna Nagy. Their daughter, Amanda, is an Army 1st Lt. and a 2001 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy. She's assigned to Fort Virginia in Kuwait, and while women still don't do much front-line combat, Amanda's job is vitally important for the 9,000 troops based there. She runs the post office for the Adjutant General's Corps. Amanda's parents told me she wanted to go to West Point since her early days in high school. A friend a couple of years older went to the Academy and inspired Amanda.
Her outstanding academic record and character would open any college doors. But Amanda only applied to the University of Michigan and West Point, none of the other service academies.
Her parents beamed with pride, showing me pictures of Amanda in uniform at the Academy along the Hudson. They delighted as I told them about the Niagara Frontier origins of the distinctive gray uniforms. During the War of 1812, Gen. Winfield Scott commanded American forces along the Niagara River. In the important battle at Chippewa Creek, Scott had his regular Army forces wear the gray uniforms of the Niagara militia.
The move tricked the British and Scott won the battle. He was so attached to the uniforms that he ordered them for the cadets at West Point when he later became commandant.
The Nagys showed me the last e-mail Amanda sent them. She told them how much she loves them, asked them not to worry and warned they might not hear from her for awhile.
Her parents are naturally concerned. You can see the worry in their faces, but they have great confidence their daughter will return safely.
"Sure we worry," Louis Nagy said softly. "But I have faith our government will protect her and all her classmates from West Point. We know so many of them."
My photographer and I were heading back to the station, listening to the radio, when all hell broke loose over Baghdad. The real war had begun and so had the media excesses.
We were listening to CBS radio and they suddenly switched to the audio from CBS television, where Dan Rather was doing the play-by-play. You could hear the blasts and sounds of anti-aircraft fire.
In a moment that would make Edward R. Murrow roll in his grave, Rather said, with great profundity, "And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air."
My photographer and I looked at each other in pained disgust, and I wished for a moment we were in our helicopter, where I could easily grab a barf bag.
I never could stand Dan Rather. His transparently disingenuous folksiness repulses me. But his trite recitation of the "Star-Spangled Banner," especially at a time like that, was the first shot in what's sure to be a volley of disgusting media moments in the weeks to come.
The slaves in the media, especially in American television, will use whatever label or code name the government applies to a military operation -- never, of course, qualifying it to note that the government picks these words to sell and sanctify its purposes.
Who would dare call this war anything other than "Operation Iraqi Freedom"?
Shock and awe! Shock and awe!
Hearing that phrase about 20,000 times over a few days made me wonder whether, if the Pentagon had called it "schlock and gnaw," the media puppets from the new Pravda would have used that phrase without blushing for a second.
When Friday's air attacks began, I happened to be a short distance from East Seven Mile Road in Detroit, a neighborhood we call Little Baghdad.
The concentration of so many Iraqi-Americans here provides another human face to this story.
I headed to the Tigris Restaurant to see how people were reacting to the unfolding events. The patrons, all men, usually sit around, eat Iraqi food, drink strong coffee, smoke and play cards.
That day, most of them were glued to the television, where a satellite picked up Al Jazeera, the Arabic network. The live feed was coming straight from Baghdad and the video and camera positions were much better than the U.S. and British television receive.
I talked to several men, all born in Iraq and all with close family members still there.
These people fled Saddam and would love to see him gone. But you could see the anguish in their eyes and hear the tremble in their voices as they described their feelings watching the bombs and missiles exploding.
"Oh, this war. I don't know. Sure, I want Saddam out, but my two sisters and brother are there. They have nothing. Now they might die or just suffer more. They need food and medicine. They have nothing."
Sameer Arabo told me that as we watched the bombing. It turns out I know his cousin, an attorney, and other members of his family. Knowing so many people from Iraq brings a different, painful feeling to a war so many view as entertainment or others see as a disruption of their soap operas and sitcoms.
As I pray for a quick end to the violence, I think of the Wilcoxson, Nagy and Arabo families.
Their faces tell me more truth about the reality and suffering of war than all the politicians, generals and talking heads combined.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 25 2003 |