Oops! We Did It Again?
4/4/2003
If Iraq can hold on long enough, they might just win this war! At the rate coalition forces are killing each other, they might just eliminate themselves from the war without Iraq having to do anything. It seems every day that I hear new stories about coalition casualties due to friendly-fire accidents. How is it that the most sophisticated military in the world cannot differentiate the difference between friend and foe?
The latest headline that actually caused me to write this article involved the shooting down of a fighter jet by one of our own Patriot missiles. Not a single Iraqi plane has taken off since the beginning of the war yet apparently we still could not tell that it was one of our own planes. This fact did not seem to stop US forces from shooting down and killing several British forces a week prior to this incident either.
Realistically, the number of casualties that the coalition forces are suffering if low compared to the Iraqi military, but I feel that these numbers can and should be lower. I understand that the battle conditions are treacherous but mechanical failures and accidents should not make up the majority of our casualties.
Perhaps it is the skeptic in me, but I do not feel that the 24-hour a day news coverage is helping in any way. The citizens of the US and the Iraqi military do not need live updates as to when and where our troops are moving. The stunning footage that the embedded reporters are presenting is largely used to fill airtime on all of the cable news channels. In fact, I do not remember turning on one of these channels and seeing something other than war coverage since the first bomb fell on Baghdad. Are they telling us that not a single newsworthy event has happened in our own country since then? I was glued to my television just like everyone else for the first few days, but the coverage is so stretched that it is hardly worth my time. I can watch the nightly news on a broadcast channel and find out everything I need to know in half an hour.
I understand that 24 hours is a lot of time to fill, but I really do not care what every retired general has to say about the war. I can receive the same amount of information by watching the nightly news because they only have a limited time to present the information. In previous articles I have been the first one to say, “turn it off if you do not want to watch it”, but I feel the live coverage does us the public no substantial good while jeopardizing our troops at the same time. I am not proposing censorship, rather a good dose of common sense. Geraldo Rivera has already been asked to leave the country for revealing the location of our troops; does it need to happen again with casualties before the cable networks realize that they are not doing anyone a service?
If we are to believe the media, which I unfortunately largely do, it is only a matter of time before the coalition forces overwhelm any opposition forces. There has never been a casualty free war, and there probably will never be one. One only hopes that the term “friendly-fire” become obsolete as there will inevitably be more than enough casualties caused by the opposition.
Why? Just Because!