Thank You
The deaths of 18 Italian soldiers and carabinieri in Iraq this week, and of the first Polish soldier last week, are sad reminders that Americans are not alone in Iraq. “This is a costly process, often painful and for many people not yet understood, but it is needed,” the Polish Prime Minister said, speaking on Poland’s independence day in a partially reconstructed palace near Babylon. The Italian Cabinet reinforced the unit decimated by the bombing and voted to maintain the 2,300-member contingent in Iraq.
These are good allies and we mourn their losses as our own.
The deaths of 18 Italian soldiers and carabinieri in Iraq this week, and of the first Polish soldier last week, are sad reminders that Americans are not alone in Iraq. “This is a costly process, often painful and for many people not yet understood, but it is needed,” the Polish Prime Minister said, speaking on Poland’s independence day in a partially reconstructed palace near Babylon. The Italian Cabinet reinforced the unit decimated by the bombing and voted to maintain the 2,300-member contingent in Iraq.
These are good allies and we mourn their losses as our own.
We have other good allies who know it isn’t enough to be privately relieved that Saddam is gone and that the U.S. did most of the heavy lifting. The ability of the coalition to oust the remnants of the regime and its terrorist and fanatical allies is essential to freeing not only Iraq but large parts of the Muslim world from totalitarians who subvert, demean and impoverish their own people.
Some of our allies in Iraq owe their own (sometimes fragile) democracies to the U.S.: El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Honduras and Nicaragua have more than 1,100 soldiers assisting a Spanish-led brigade. Korea is there (3,000 troops announced).
Some remember how long it took to remove their communist dictatorships and which country across the Atlantic supported them. Albania (71), Azerbaijan (150), Bulgaria (485 with more coming), Czech Republic (296 plus military police) Georgia (69), Estonia (55), Hungary (330), Kazakhstan (27), Latvia (106), Lithuania (90), Macedonia (28), Moldova (“dozens”), Poland (2,400 commanding one of the military sectors), Romania (800), Slovakia (82 military engineers) and Ukraine (1,640).
Old Europe is there too. Denmark (410), Italy (3,000), Netherlands (1,106), Norway (156), Portugal (120 police officers), Spain (1,300) and of course the UK (7,400).
Asia has New Zealand (61), Philippines (177) and Thailand (400).
Don’t let numbers fool you – some countries can’t afford to deploy more and some have sent precisely the specialists the coalition needs: military engineers, law enforcement officers and military police, intelligence and de-mining specialists, transport troops, helicopter pilots, medics and special forces.
Critics of American policy like to say it is America’s war or a war for oil, and Americans or President Bush will pay for its success or failure. But like-minded people, including tens of thousands of Iraqis who defy the fascists every day to join the burgeoning security forces, know better. The whole Middle East is poised between the discredited framework of the past 60 years and potential for freedom in the next 60.
The ultimate sacrifice made by brave Americans, Italians, Brits, Poles and Iraqis will not have been in vain if they make the transformation work.