I understand the reason behind US troops wanting to donate toys or candy to Iraqi children. It's an attempt to make a public relations connection. However, is that really something that our troops should be doing given the fact that the terrorists or insurgents whatever you want to call them are using these public gatherings as a time to strike?
Of course there is the mentality that says we should not live our lives as determined by those who want to kill innocents. Yet who pays for this situation? Iraqi children and their parents.
Nov. 24 -- A suicide attacker steered a car packed with explosives toward U.S. soldiers giving away toys to children outside a hospital in central Iraq on Thursday, killing at least 31 people. Almost all of the victims were women and children, police said.
July 13 --27 people killed when a suicide bomber drove into a crowd that had gathered around U.S. soldiers who were handing out candy and small toys, police said. The attack also killed one soldier, according to the U.S. military, and wounded at least 50 people.
October 1, 2004 -- Children rushing to collect sweets from American soldiers became the latest victims of Iraqi insurgents as a series of devastating car bombs struck Baghdad yesterday. Thirty four children were killed, in all, 44 people were killed and over 236 injured, officials said.
The above listed incidents were just those that involved a large death toll and were close to being in the past year.
In July, this was an article headline:
US Soldiers Risk Death to Gain Smiles From Iraqi Children
The article goes on further to state:
The original mission of the 1-128 was to secure the Iraqi region in which they were operating, obtain human intelligence and report on criminal activity. But the commander allowed the soldiers to "dedicate portions of our patrol for the specific purpose of helping to improve the local infrastructure and distributing the humanitarian aid collected by members of our platoon," according to Johnson.
What followed was a full-fledged humanitarian effort in support of the surrounding communities, many of which, Johnson explained, include struggling farmers "genuinely excited about the prospect of developing their young democracy."
An honorable mission, however what was not mentioned is not only are the US soldiers putting their lives at risk, but they were also risking the lives of Iraqi children and their parents. While the ultimate responsibility for these deaths is the terrorists/insurgents should we continue to help create situations for these people to strike? To me it's the same theory as not having done a better job security wise for those who wanted to sign up to join the Iraqi Security Forces, time after time those who wanted to volunteer were targeted.
While it is very hard in an urban setting to tell who is friend or foe, to me logic dictates we create as few situations for large numbers of civilian deaths that the Americans can be associated with.
10 comments:
Confirms my suspicion that the so-called insurgents are not Iraqis.
Iraqis wouldn't do that to their own...
Our troops must be VERY careful in picking the moment and the place to interact with the children.
I agree David and HT, it is a tough one. I can see both points of why it is done versus why I feel it should not be done; but as with the recruting I feel there has to be ways to make these large gatherings safer. It's only logical that terrorists are going to select these groups to target.
It also goes to show either HT is correct and/or these "insurgents" really do not care about Iraqis since they seem to have no problem targeting children. While the US is of course responsible for the deaths of children too, I have seen very little evidence that any of these deaths were purposeful such as these bombings have been. I also feel a huge amount of disgust directed at parents that would purposely place their children in the line of fire/conflict.
lmao - sorry Whitey I was thinking David cuz I had just left his site.
I'm not a blonde but even I have my dizzy moments.
:-)
I agree that it is a tough decision to make. Child development is a big thing for me, because I've seen it go astray so much in my own kids, and I know that from the perspective of these children's development being secure in their homes all the time isn't good for them. At the same time, gathering around soldiers for treats and becoming targets for their enemies isn't good for them either.
Though, if these stories were more widely broadcast it would make it that much more difficult to call those killing the kids "freedom fighters." And, a better distribution system would also probably be developed and some of our peace-loving people might be better able to focus their time on helping provide these kids with a safe means to get what they need.
For myself, I couldn't imagine letting my kids go out into such a situation. However, do we know if these kids have parents and if so is either parent available to stay home? Part of it may be a lack of available supervision if both parents are trying to secure their family's next meal.
Your argument for stopping this behavior is a sound one. We don't want these kids becoming targets. However, giving away these items (were it safe) really does help these kids and helps the soldiers as well. Both the kids and the soldiers need to experience the more personal, giving side that this war makes possible to help overcome all the trauma of the war itself.
I don't think there is a good easy solution to this problem. It's a lose/lose situation and is all the more indicative (not that I had any doubt) that the "insurgents" (or whatever you want to call them) need to be stopped.
I would argue that the responsibility for the death and destruction is on the shoulders of the evil men (and a few women, sadly) who target children. If we change our behavior in response to their evil, they will win. The goal here is not just to kill these children. It is to prevent the human relations, the social improvement, the strengthening of community, the improvement of military-civilian relations. If we stop, they will have accomplished what they intended. And, their real target is not those children. It's not even their parents. It is you and I, the American public. The goal is to cause us to decide what we are doing is not worth it and put pressure on our government to withdraw prematurely. The whole world saw it happen in Somalia and bin Laden, al-Zarqawi and all the rest are convinced it will happen again in Iraq.
The great thing here is to realize that the bad guys cannot beat us militarily, they can only cause damage. The great thing is to realize that and not lose our nerve.
Eric, I do believe the ultimate responsibility lies with the terrorists/insurgents. That said, if we know they are going to target large groups of Iraqi children or Iraqis who are volunteering; I feel we should not lure children into such situations without adequate security.
Of course the Iraqi parents are also responsible, since they as well know that these gatherings are not exactly safe. But since the goal is to make Iraq a better place there is more we could do to help decrease children especially being made targets.
The end result of these children dying does not always equate with the terrorists being blamed. Some of the parents also place responsibility with the US. Some parents warn their children to stay away from the US troops for that very reason which is the exact opposite of the whole reason for giving the children toys or candy to begin with.
So, while I agree the attempt is noble, I also am very conflicted as to the continuation of this given the terrorist/insurgents will continue to focus on the easiest targets.
I didn't mean to imply that decisions in this sort of war aren't tough. Desert Storm, for the individual soldiers anyhow, was much easier as far as questions of ethics and morality. We didn't really have to think about the sort of things the guys do now. For which I am very thankful.
Eric, I didn't take it as as you were implying that it wasn't tough. I think that's one issue we all agree on. I would not want to be the one making the decison on this issue. To try to balance the desire to create a humanitarian public relations effort versus knowing this could be used by terrorists/insurgents would be extremely difficult.
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