At all costs

How many deaths, casualties, widows and orphans does it take to conquer Baghdad?

With victory the ultimate goal, the U.S. and its allies seem unbending in their determination to eliminate Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and install a democratic government in Iraq, modeled after the U.S. democracy, where, in the words of Denzel Washington, anger is a reality and 14-year-olds murder kids in cold blood.

At U.S. headquarters in the Gulf, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday that America was "prepared to pay a very high price because we are not going to do anything other than ensure that this regime goes away".

If that meant a lot of casualties, then so be it, he said.

At least 1,000 lives are estimated to have been lost so far in the first two weeks of war in Iraq, with U.S. and British combat- related deaths edging towards 100, some 500 Iraqi civilians killed as well as untold numbers of Iraqi soldiers and militia fighters.

But what do President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair care about body counts so long as their objective is met? After all, it's not their sons and daughters who go to war and risk their lives.

Iraq may perish from the earth, as have many states before it. Iraqis may find themselves stranded in strange land or rounded up in "reservation" camps -- a repeat of the history of American Indians after they lost to the white people in the battle for their land and tradition.

If it's "Let a nation perish for a new democracy" for Bush and Blair, then nothing will stop them . --JP