The Long Road

"There was a thought ... that this [war] was going to be quick and easy and bloodless, and we were going to be welcomed with rose petals on our tanks, and this has not come to pass...the overall situation -- you've got long, long supply lines, two or three of them, that stretch 300 miles to the rear, and these are under a great deal of pressure from some people we didn't expect to be there. The Fedayeen, the irregulars, crazies -- whatever you want to call them -- are putting [on] a lot of heat, and the Marines have had to virtually fight their way through Nasiriya with every supply column." -- longtime war correspondent Joe Galloway, to CNN's Jody Woodruff

Somehow many of us who opposed the start of the war on Iraq knew that this would probably be the case. In any repressive or dictatorial regime throughout history - though many citizens may fear, and secretly oppose the the powers-that-be - there are always many who support it. For every Iraqi soldier or civilian whom we expected to greet us gladly as liberators, I am sure there is at least one more who views us as "The Great Satan" come to defile their land with our "Western corruption".

We may, in fact, be the proverbial Boy Scouts (often seen as a gag in Mad Magazine) trying to force the old lady to cross the street, when she was perfectly happy standing on the other side; never mind the fact this old lady may have a VX gas canister or a scimitar in her purse.

We hear accounts of atrocities against innocent civilians by their own governments around the world - Africa, Asia, South America, the former Soviet Union, you name it - but we're not sending in thousands of soldiers or billions in armaments to "decapitate" their leadership.

I hope there's a very good reason why it was so important to start this particular war at this point in time, for the sake of all the sons and daughters who will fall in this war's name, and their families...that, and the stunning financial cost our nation will incur - that could take decades to pay off. But let's not forget the cost of human lives will never be repaid, and I hope they will not have fallen in vain.

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