We have destroyed a large part of the life for these children.
In addition to the physical pain and suffering, often of unimaginable magnitude, we have been responsible for the destruction of a large part of the underpinnings of their society.
The next time you are in the hospital, just think about how much pain this child had to suffer without respite. The mother does not even have the luxury of an IV pole.
This child might never see again (if he is alive).
Yet the children of Irak are not monsters. They are part of a culture that stretches back thousands of years. They act and behave like children everywhere.
Except for the grief and anxiety that we have inflicted upon them.
In the sixty years since WWII, the World has learned a lot about responsibility, particularly at Nuremberg.
Who is responsible for these children's burns?
Is it Saddam Hussein? A despicable man to be sure, but still the leader of a sovereign nation whose principal fault in 2003 on the international stage was not to order his army to roll over and play dead. Yes, it is possible that he has some responsibility for the death and destruction of "Shock and Awe" and the subsequent American invasion.
Is the responsibility with the World at large? With the United Nations which failed in its mandate to stop America from invading Iraq (for crying out loud, it is one of the major tenets of the Charter for that organization, preventing aggression of one country against another. How smug we were in 1948 when we finally got approval of the Charter, the shadow of the League of Nations that Congress had denied Wilson.)
Maybe the World is more responsible than we might believe. There are those who charge all non German nations with not stopping the Holocaust of Jews during WWII. I am going to have to think about this for a while.....
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