THE THINGS WE OUGHT TO CARRY

I just heard a local NPR host interview Tim O'Brien, author of the campus-favorite Vietnam novel, "The Things They Carried."

Mr. O'Brien is not fond of the current war. He went a little bit off the path of the interview when he said it "disgusts" him that "supporters of war" (it didn't take much to hear "this" stuck in between) don't want people to see images of the consequences of war, hiding behind it being too "disturbing." Mr O'Brien thinks people should be disturbed.

Well, he's right. Going to war should always be a sober decision, and that it's so disturbing is why.

But, as with any coin, this one has another side.

There's no question that critics of the current war, and many of them are in control of the bulk of the media, take the same approach when it comes to coverage of the enemy we fight. While the horrors and consequences of war are well-covered when it comes to innocent suffering and carnage inflicted on our troops, far, far less attention, and almost no graphics, tend to be on display of an enemy who:

Kidnaps civilians and puts them, terrified, on camera, weeping for someone to meet their captors' demand, while those captors as often as not are standing there in masks and guns;

Attacks civilian convoys, murders people, and leaves their charred, burnt bodies hanging from a bridge;

Kidnaps local civilians, and on threat of killing their families, forces them to drive suicide car bombs into busy public squares and marketplaces, sometimes with their arms actually tied to the steering wheels to keep them from backing out;

Actually saws kidnapped victims' heads off their bodies, on camera, with boasts;

Relentlessly targets civilians, attempts to disrupt elections through threats, intimidation, and violence;

Threatens the families of duly elected officials and others, like judges, for intimidation purposes;

And, oh yeah, flies passenger airliners into office buildings on clear late-summer mornings.

To name but a few things specifically applicable to the enemy we fight on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan . . . things which don't get nearly the air time that the "consequences of war" stories tend to get, and often, the reason given is that the images are too "disturbing." Well, if we as a free people need to be disturbed by the consequences of war, so, too, do we need to be disturbed by the very real horrors perpetrated by the enemy. Mr. O'Brien didn't address that, so I don't know what he thinks about it. But it's a point worth making nonetheless.

How much air time was given to the uncovered crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime? The numerous mass graves? The prisons full of the children of dissidents? The torture chambers? Anywhere near the coverage of Abu Ghraib? No.

There's no question whatsoever in my mind that these people need to be fought, and need to be destroyed, where they live, rather than where we live. I am not blind to the cost, nor the consequences or the very real suffering involved. But there are those who would rather I not be too burdened by horrific images which might convince me -- or others -- that I might be right.