A Bad News Day

A Green Beret was killed in action today and a CIA officer wounded in the same firefight. And word reaches us that the wife of the late Mike Spann, the CIA officer killed in the prison riot outside Mazar, died recently of cancer leaving his children orphans. (Thank you John Walker.) All in all a bad news day.

A very bad news day for our enemies. As they all have been.

After only three months the Taliban is no longer a viable political force. Al Quaeda's leadership is on the run and unable to communicate, one of it's primary officers killed in the midst of writing a game-plan for losing. Pro-American legislators are on the rise throughout Afghanistan while former "safe-countries" are closing up and running scared. Yasser Arafat is calling for an end to the intifada, Yemen is invading its tribal areas and the American juggernaut is lazily pondering what country to defeat -- not fight, defeat -- next.

In the midst of this there is, frankly, a battle raging over how to view casualties on our side. The battle over how to view enemy casualties is over everywhere except Berkeley : A good terrorist is a dead terrorist. But the question is: What emphasis should be placed upon our injured soldiers. Yes, we should care, on of the things that distinguishes us from our enemies is that we actively seek to bring our troops home alive. But many drop everything at the word that "a Special Forces personnel was killed by enemy fire today."

Is this a good idea? Should we go into national mourning over the death of one soldier? Lower the flags, wrap our arms in black?

I'm not sure. This war is somewhat different from most; it is a war of philosophy as much as politics. Our enemy entered it in the mistaken assumption that we were weak and so averse to casualties that we would do anything to avoid them. That if we were hit hard enough we would shy away, cowards to the core. To the enemy, to most of the people raised in Islamic societies that prize pride over substance, statement over reality, our basicShumanity, our, sorry to any liberals reading this, Christian caring for life and for our fellow man, was mistaken for weakness. A national outpouring of sadness and mourning for the very few military deaths we have suffered enhances that image of weakness. Perhaps it would be better to stoically ignore the occasional casualty as no more than a line item on a report. "Bah, another old trooper" in the words of a character familiar with death. This our enemy would see as dangerously ascetic. A valid threat.

On the other hand, the disparity of casualties has been enormous. Admittedly, very few of our forces have gotten close enough for the Al Quaeda and Taliban to engage them. But even among those who have, this is the first loss to enemy fire. Yet we have killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of Taliban and Al Quaeda. The exact count will never be known for in many cases we turned them into an unholy mash with carpets of 2000 lb. bombs. And one of the differences between us is that to us each trooper is precious, an expensive and highly trained human being that is an individual worth nurturing. "Let the other poor bastard die for his country."

Mourn or ignore?

I think I know my position, now. As I see my children walking in the snow and think of each of those fine men growing up, becoming the elite warriors that have smashed their way from one side of Afghanistan to the other in an unstoppable tideS

Let us rejoice. Let us mourn and cry and hold them up to the stars. Bring the body home in state. Have a ticker tape parade down to Tim es Square then a lying in state at Ground Zero. Let all the networks carry the funeral live in living color. And let us send forth our men and women knowing that come they back with their shields or on them, we honor them fully and to the hilt. Let their be no hatred or wailing, just grim smiles of welcome to our fallen comrades. My the most common toast in America become "Absent Companions" followed by "Death to the Terrorists."

And let our enemies see, as the bodies of their dead are picked by vultures, human and avian, that even in death we are triumphant and superior.

I think I know my position. Let us honorably and soberly rejoice