Our Collateral Damage

By Richard Cohen

Second Lt. Leonard M. Cowherd was killed May 16, 2004. He was 22. He was also a West Point graduate, so if you are looking for some way to mitigate the tragedy, that could be it. He chose the military. Of course he did not want to be killed, but he was a college graduate and a smart guy, and he understood the risks. In this, he was like a police officer or a firefighter -- something like that. They, too, understand the risks. So when something happens -- a building catches fire or some killer is cornered -- we pay people to do the dangerous work that we won't do ourselves. Is this more or less what we did in Iraq?

Maybe. Certainly, those who favored the war -- who palpably wanted it -- must have thought so. They must have seen it as necessary, and it may have helped that most of them -- President Bush, Vice President Cheney and the rest -- had never been in combat themselves, although plenty of those who had were in total agreement. Maybe it helps, too, to believe that the dead go to heaven, and so the end as I see it is not the end as they see it. Still, there is something awfully cold and mean about sending young people to die for what amounts to a geopolitical theory about the Middle East. Sorry, send your own kid for that.

See Whole Editorial Here