Yes, Saddam has to go, but at what a price? Spain's top-selling newspaper EL PAIS printed a photo on Sunday of a little Iraqi girl being carried by her father. What was left of right foot was dangling by a thread from her ankle. Today, EL PAIS had a front page photo of a 12 yr. old boy from a town on the outskirts of Baghdad with no arms. His torso was so badly burned that doctors say he probably won't survive. All his family were killed instantly, 12 of them. It's difficult to find reliable figures of the numbers of innocents killed so far, but what with reports daily streaming in, the mind can only boggle.
But... Saddam needs to go. It's too bad, isn't it? I've lived in Spain for 20 years. Just five years before I moved here, it regained its democracy after 40 years of a brutal dictatorship under Generalmsimo Francisco Franco. Imagine if Roosevelt, or some other US president, had gotten a bee in his bonnet about that tyrant? He was a mate of Hitler's, wasn't he? And although he didn't come out and openly support Hitler, there certainly was a lot of shady business done behind the scenes. And didn't Hitler do Franco a big favour when he bombed the hell out of Guernika in the Basque Country in 1937? Out of a population of 7,000, almost 1,000 were massacred.when 40 German planes dropped 50,000 kilos of incendiary bombs. The town centre was completely destoyed. Many more were left mutilated and badly wounded. (Interesting to note that prior to one of Colin Powell's pre-war visits to the UN headquarters, officials had Picasso's Guernika covered over with a blue flag) The point I'm trying to make is, if a US president had decided to bomb Spain 'cos he didn't like Franco, I wonder if I would have the same great friends I have now. Their parents and grandparents might have become "collateral damage". What if Franco had lived 40 years later and bombs were raining down on us now.... ? How can bombing Iraq and then handing out biscuits help liberate those poor people? If you want to read about some recent "collateral damage" (despicable term), here are a few links. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61229-2003Mar31.html http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,6119,2-10-1460_1341016,00.html http://www.progressive.org/webex03/wx033103.html Peace gill in madrid "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
