Author: Carol Watson

There is much speculation floating around about the tragic crash of the British C-130 Hercules yesterday which occurred barely twenty miles northwest of Baghdad. While the BBC reports in Ten feared dead in Hercules crash that “…wreckage from the C-130 plane, which is known for its reliability, was spread over a wide area, after crashing in fine conditions,” the most telling statement in the entire article is this one:

“It is thought the investigation into what caused the crash could prove difficult in the hostile territory.”

“Hostile territory?” Are they saying there is still hostile territory merely twenty miles northwest of Baghdad? That tells a lot about current security conditions in Iraq. In fact, it sounds quite similar to conditions in Afghanistan outside of Kabul for the past three years.

It seems such a short while, one month ago today exactly, when I posted that 1100 US troops had died in Iraq, and at the time it seemed such a short while before that 1000 troops had died. Now we have reached 1200. Such a tragic waste of lives to justify a mistaken war.

For the men, women and children of Iraq who have died, no one seems to have judged it important enough to count them. That is an even greater tragedy.

Casualties in Iraq

Buried down toward the bottom of this news roundup of the current situation in Iraq is this tiny but devastating blurb:

An Iraqi company commander who had received a full battle briefing on the expected Falluja assault has deserted a military base where U.S. and Iraqi troops are preparing. Officials discovered the commander, a Kurdish captain, was missing on Friday. Marine officials believe the man took notes from the battle briefing Thursday and and are worried he may pass the information to insurgents.

Sunday: It has come to my attention that CNN has pulled all reference to this story, including removing that tiny but devasting blurb. However, the Australian media has not, and here is the complete article:
Iraqi officer deserts with Fallujah plans

From Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches, Spiraling into Occupied Iraq

Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles are perched along the road, with their weapons aimed directly at us and other cars as we pass…this is occupied Iraq. We drive perilously close to a huge Bradley with its growling treads and I point to it thinking Abu Talat may not see how close he is. He laughs and says, “This is our daily life…you know this. How do you think Americans would like to have tanks on their streets aiming guns at them? For us, this is normal.”

Today’s dedication ceremony and reenactment in Balaclava, Ukraine, in honor of the valiant charge by British cavalry during the Crimean War brings to mind once again Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s stirring poem of heroic duty. “The Charge of the Light Brigade” has immortalized the consequences of a mistaken command on a battlefield; a “blunder,” as Tennyson puts it. How this poem thrilled me as a child before I was aware of the true nature of war, how the horsemen of the Light Brigade bravely charged the enemy cannons even though they knew they had been given a suicidal order by mistake.

Who will be the poet to immortalize our brave troops in Iraq? They too are charging into harm’s way based on a huge mistake, a momumental blunder; a war based on erroneous data and out-and-out lies, a war which should never have been started. No one questions the courage of our troops, and a proud nation salutes their sense of duty. But again, will there be a great poet to immortalize their sacrifice, or will they be silently forgotten to history as an uncomfortable reminder of a great mistake in judgment?

Read the poem, and think of our troops over in Iraq:
The Charge of the Light Brigade

In light of today’s horrendous news that 380 tons (760,000 pounds) of high explosives seem to have been “mislaid” in the aftermath of the war in 2003, I was reminded of a blog entry I posted in January 2004 which dealt with a similar theft, only then it was about radioactive waste and its devastating effect on one small Iraqi villiage. The cause was the same, failure to secure dangerous materials. Of course, great care was taken at that same time by the military to secure the buildings of the Iraqi Oil Ministry.

Here is Dahr Jamail’s original story “Who Will Give Us Back Our Health”