Bombs Don't Kill Just Bad Guys

The Boston Herald

I wonder: If we all wore name tags with photos of ourselves as children, would we hate each other so much?

If we carried a video and before we could kill or be killed, we got to say, "Time out. Watch this," and we showed our enemy just 10 minutes of our lives and he showed us 10 minutes of his, would we still be enemies?

And if we could spy on all the people we think we don't like and watch them live a single day, would we realize that they're not much different from us? Would we try a little harder to get along?

How can there be a species that never learns? Bacteria are smarter. They change. We don't. We just keep making the same mistakes.

USA Today reports that the American public is solidly behind a U.S. attack on Iraq. In a survey of 1,014 adults, 76 percent said they approve of air strikes and 60 percent said they support the use of ground troops, too.

So, will Saddam Hussein's arrogance be tempered by bombs exploding around him? Will killing his people and raining fire on his country get him to come to the table, when simply shaking our fists and demanding that he come hasn't worked?

We stand virtually alone in this war against Saddam. Much of the rest of the world shudders as we prepare to fight. Give it more time, many of our own allies demand. Talk. Go slowly. This is dangerous. Don't start something you may not be able to stop.

For we won't be fighting just Saddam. Egypt and Libya are on his side. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia? Who knows what they will do?

So what then are we fighting for? To save the world from chemical warfare? For truth, justice and the American way?

If that's the case then why didn't we fight in Bosnia for justice or Albania for truth? Why aren't we fighting in Cyprus for the American way of life? Or is it that we start fights only when we have something to gain?

How can we Americans encourage one more war?

"Cold Mountain" is on the best-seller list. It's been there for months. It's the story - fiction based in fact - of a Confederate soldier who desserts, who's had it with killing, who doesn't recognize the man he has become and who wants to go home to his girl, his mountain and his life.

"Before the war he had never been much of a one for strife. But once enlisted, fighting had come easy to him. He had decided it was like any other thing, a gift. Like a man who could whittle birds out of wood. Or one who could pick tunes from a banjo."

Americans love books like "Cold Mountain," "All Quiet on the Western Front," "The Things They Carried." We read them and talk about them and say that war is hell.

We watch movies like "Platoon" but what do we learn from these films?

"If the United States decided to take military action against Iraq, would you approve or disapprove of air attacks alone?" Three of every four American approve.

Ah, but what if Iraq decided to take military action against the United States, would three of every four Americans approve then?

Why do we think bombs can explode and no one will get hurt except for the bad guys? And why, despite all we know and all we see, do we never learn?

Saddam will live through a war. He's lived through sanctions. It's the ordinary people who have suffered and who will suffer more.

What happens if fighting becomes easy after a while, if war is like every other thing? We've had five in this century, why not six?

And what if the war dead could speak? What would they tell us now?