Saturday, January 21, 2006

Jill Carroll in Context

As Brian notes, Jill Carroll is at least the sixtieth journalist victim of Iraq since the invasion. This is part of the context of this atrocity which I've been missing. Many journalists died from US/Allied fire; many were Iraqis. Journalists really should be protected, as much as doctors and teachers and ... well, everyone who isn't actually fighting. Old fashioned of me, I know.

But this goes to the other half of the problem. Us.

Yes, the insurgency is fighting dirty and should be stopped, punished, obliterated. But our tactics and our results are also problematic -- I'd argue that we're doing about as much damage, mitigated by the fact that we're trying to do a lot of good stuff as well -- and it's got to be kind of hard for Iraqis to be sure whose side really hurts them more.

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