Armchair participation in the `war on Iraq' was an eye-opening experience

Nick Wilgus

I tried rather hard not to watch the ``War in Iraq'', not to watch while helpless Iraqis dodged missiles and bombs launched from the safety of huge battleships out in the Gulf, not to watch pictures of wounded, screaming children, or frightened families huddling in tents far from Baghdad hoping to escape the chaos.

Like most people, I was upset by what I saw, such as the pictures of a 12-year-old boy named Ali Ismael Abbas who had lost both his parents _ and both his arms _ when a bomb went astray. Or pictures of frightened American POWs.

Despite my best efforts, it was hard not to watch. And in watching, it was hard not to be disturbed by the obvious propaganda being spewed by both sides in the conflict.

Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf made a name for himself with his outrageous lies about American soldiers committing suicide on the ``gates of Baghdad'' and all the rest of it.

The Americans and Britons used terms like friendly fire'' to describe deadly mistakes in which their forces accidentally killed each other, not to mention regime change'' and ``decapitation strikes'' to describe their intentions to murder a man they don't like.

And what did we see, actually? We saw carefully edited bits and pieces. We saw what each side wanted us to see. The Iraqis revelled in images of dead bodies and slaughtered civilians, inflaming the Arab world with hatred for the West; the West, for its part, showed off its machines and technology, its superior abilities, its ``shock and awe''. It didn't show the devastation that shock and awe carried out.

There have been complaints that the news'' delivered by outlets like CNN and the BBC was too sanitised, too clean, too obviously biased. Notice what wasn't said and what wasn't shown. All those precision bombs and laser-guided missiles being dropped on military targets like tanks and bunkers and barracks _ how many Iraqi soldiers were killed because of them? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? When those bunker-busting bombs'' did their dirty business, how many dead bodies did they leave behind? How many were buried in piles of rubble (where they probably still are)?

The word ``slaughter'' comes to mind.

Most of those soldiers were drafted into Saddam's army, forced to put on the uniform, forced to fight for a regime they probably didn't like and were probably terrified of (and no doubt some surrendered the first chance they had).

Aren't the deaths of those many thousands of young Iraqi men worth remembering, worth reporting on? How would the victorious allies feel if pictures of all those many piles of dead bodies were broadcast on CNN?

How many widows did this war create? How many children will grow up without a father? How many parents lost a son, or maybe all their sons?

After dropping literally thousands of missiles and bombs on the city, by the time the coalition ground forces got to Baghdad, who was left to fight, and what was there left to fight with?

The ``coalition of the willing'' must be pleased with themselves, pleased with their superior technology, their control of the air space, their ability to drop bombs on precise targets, all from the comfort and safety of their command-and-control centres.

I suspect the rest of the world is not quite so pleased. I suspect the rest of the world might have been left just a little bit frightened by such a display of raw power and destructive capability.

Losing about 150 coalition soldiers, they managed to effect a ``regime change'' in a country halfway across the world while leaving thousands of Iraqis dead in their wake _ not to mention all those widows and orphans.

Then one must consider all the bodies that Saddam Hussein left in his wake during his decades of rule _ all the torture chambers, the executions, the gassing of the Kurds, the crimes against humanity, attacking his neighbours like Iran and Kuwait.

It's hard not to be happy for the Iraqis that they have been liberated from the rule of such a vicious man, but what a terrible price they had to pay.

This ``pre-emptive'' business has taken the whole world into new, possibly dangerous waters, a world in which America is the supercop and their interests must be served _ or else. They're already rattling their sabres at Syria.

Although this was supposed to strike a blow in the ``war on terrorism'', I suspect it has done nothing but give millions of people even more reason to hate Americans and to resent their arrogant, aggressive ways.

Watching war on television is not necessarily a bad thing. Pictures, indeed, are worth thousands of words. And some of those pictures will be hard to forget.

An American myself, I'm left with many mixed emotions about this whole business. Pride isn't one of them.