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| - rotrzelor by user DNL Last week, for a brief moment before Anna Nicole Smith overtook front pages everywhere, the top story was about a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashing in Iraq, killing those American Soldiers on board. The stated cause: mechanical failures. The tragedy was, in a word, an accident. Image:CH46SeaKnight.jpg Today, on page A-18 of the New York Times, I read that the U.S. military has now, after further investigation, determined that the Sea Knight's crash was not accidental; rather, it was shot down by Iraqi insurgents. Upon reading this, I suddenly felt unease and dejection.
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| abstract
| - rotrzelor by user DNL Last week, for a brief moment before Anna Nicole Smith overtook front pages everywhere, the top story was about a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashing in Iraq, killing those American Soldiers on board. The stated cause: mechanical failures. The tragedy was, in a word, an accident. Image:CH46SeaKnight.jpg Today, on page A-18 of the New York Times, I read that the U.S. military has now, after further investigation, determined that the Sea Knight's crash was not accidental; rather, it was shot down by Iraqi insurgents. Upon reading this, I suddenly felt unease and dejection. And that makes no sense. The seven American servicemen who lost their lives last week are no less dead than they were when the news broke that the copter had crashed. Had they not been in Iraq in the first place, they'd not have died. Both of those statements are true, and both are are completely independent of why the copter came down. The cause of the crash shouldn't have any effect on me -- or anyone else for that matter. So why do I care? My best guess is that I can rationalize the idea that "accidents happen". It doesn't shatter any sort of preconceived worldview to think that a helicopter, especially one under the wear-and-tear of desert fighting, could suffer from such mechanical failures as to hurtle to the Earth. On the other hand, the idea that some poorly-armed, disorganized paramilitary types could down an expensive, working piece of American military equipment disturbs my believe of American military supremacy. While I still think that, push come to shove, the United States' militaristic (and other) strength(s) are, if not supreme, certainly at top of the list internationally, it's disheartening to have to put that into question. Maybe there's another reason -- and I'd be glad if someone would offer up one in the comments. But either way, I really don't like thinking, "Jeez, I hope it was just an accident." More importantly, maybe the biggest problem I -- and others -- have with the war in Iraq is not necessarily that we shouldn't be there, or that we quite possibly never should have gone. Rather, the big problem is that this feeling of American invincibility is being demonstrated to be a fiction more and more by each piece of bad news. __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.
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