« The Honeymoon Ends | Main | On Hostages and War »

November 26, 2003

Too High a Price

Jim Henley and I don't always see eye to eye, and it's rare that we agree on something about the war. His latest comments on Iraq have me wondering if he wasn't in the right on the war issue from the start after all. It appears that U.S. forces have arrested the wife and daughter of an Iraqi fugitive from Hussein's government. It is possible, I suppose, that the wife and daughter are involved in helping mastermind the attacks on coalition forces, although that seems unlikely. Still it's possible. That alone would be less of a concern for me were it not for an earlier incident that Jim points out that I missed when it happened.

It appears that U.S. forces arrested another Iraqi's wife and daughter back in July (my apologies for those who are familiar with this, but it's pretty outrageous, and it's news to me). They left a note at the house telling the Iraqi that if he wanted his family released, he would have to turn himself in. As Jim noted at the time, that's despicable. Whether or not it's illegal (and it certainly seems to be, and should be), it was absolutely wrong. We're supposed to be the good guys. I'm old enough to know that there are very few truly black and white situations any more, but to me this is one of them. The United States of America should stand for something a little better than hostage taking.

I believe that removing Saddam Hussein was a good thing. I believe that it is very important for us to further the development of representative democracy in the Arab world, for our own safety. I believe that if we leave Iraq as unfinished business, it will cost us dearly in future attacks that make September 11th pale in comparison. But if our options are to take hostages and leave ransom notes or be subject to another terrorist attack on American soil, I'll take the terrorists, thank you.

I hope that the hostage taking was an isolated incident (that wouldn't make it any less outrageous, but while once is bad enough, many times is infinitely worse), and that we've secured the wife and daughter for a legitimate reason. But it is now clear to me that we need to keep a much closer watch on what's happening in Iraq, and what tactics we're using in our zeal to win the war. Better to lose the war than to lose our soul, and I'm suddenly far more concerned about the latter than the former.