Why We're in Iraq

From My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy http://bamapachyderm.com/archives/2006/10/16/thanks-chief/

That’s CMSgt John Gebhardt of the 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group (Balad AB), comforting a little Iraqi girl.

This little girl’s entire family was executed…they intended to execute her also and shot her in the head…but they failed to kill her. She was cared for by John’s hospital and healing up, but has been crying and moaning. The nurses said John is the only one she seems to calm down with, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both sleep in that chair. The girl is coming along with her healing.
Senior Airman James Croxon (also of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing) speaks eloquently about why we’re in Iraq, after seeing a similar scenario with an Iraqi baby–most likely also cared for by Chief Gebhardt and his troops.

[W]hen I visited the hospital for the first time in May, I saw the terrible toll the insurgents are taking on the Iraqi people.

On that first visit I saw an Iraqi baby whose father was murdered by insurgents and whose mother was missing and assumed to be dead as well. As I held him I realized that his future was dependent on the outcome of this conflict and, to some extent, my actions here.

That injured and orphaned baby made me realize what was most basic and what gets taken for granted so easily - the basic freedom of life. I wasn’t fighting for politics or for religiosity gone amuck; I was fighting to give the Iraqi baby in my arms the right to live.

The brutal nature of what happened to this baby’s parents showed me the true nature of Iraq’s enemies. They don’t just want political power. They are extremist of the worst kind. Civilians, women and children are all targets. Their innocence is not enough to keep them safe from the anti-Iraq forces who are targeting them.
‘Nuff said.