They don't Deserve to Die

Pictures courtesy OIC .

It seems these soldiers think these children deserve a life. When they look at them do they see thugs and barbarians? Do they wish them ill or think that because they are Muslim they deserve to die?

I don't think so.

When I hear people say that all the Iraqis are bad people I wonder what effect that kind of rhetoric has on the Iraqis themselves. And if they decide that Americans really do hate them all and really do just want to steal their oil and really do despise them..who pays for that? These children and these soldiers. Words matter and hate breeds hate. I do not say this out some sentimental urge to tug at hearts. I say this because I believe that these young men and women are the ones in harms way, not us. We may worry about what will happen here in the future, but right now they are the ones in the line of fire. And the things we say that feed that hate and add to the paranoia and propaganda can be used against our people. Their jobs are hard enough, we should not make them harder. I do not have much faith in polls, especially polls done in places like Iraq where people have known nothing but fear for decades, but if one such poll is to believed the willingness of people to target our soldiers is largely dependent on whether or not the people trust us {or maybe the people doing the poll}, and when I hear Americans say that they do not care how many of these people {adult or children} die I have to wonder how that kind of rhetoric impacts our military personell who actually have to deal with these people.

These young people are Iraqi school children and they do not deserve to die anymore than my cousin Toffer of the US Army deserves to die.