Sorry, been away from work (and the computer).

While I'm well aware of the historical usage of the term "decimate" (the Roman method of insuring discipline through the killing of every tenth legionaire) current usage allows the meaning to extend to the killing of a large group or population (in at least three of the dictionaries I checked).

It is what Saddam's troops did to the Kurds and the "Marsh Arabs" near Basra (some 200,000 people). Hopefully our guys reduce the kill time from several years to several seconds. While those who profess the notion that killing entire groups of well-armed Special Republican Guards, who, like the German SS, and French soldiers in Napoleons Spanish campaign commited their own "decimations", is unfair or wrong, they don't seem to extend the same thoughts to the aforementioned Kurds and Arabs.

Those who want to continue sanctions do not understand the venality of their arguement. According to various estimates, including the Iraqi figures, the Gulf War killed somewhere between 21,000 and 35,000 Iraqis (including some 1,000 to 5,000 civilians). Based on Iraqi figures, UNICEF has estimated that some 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 die each month of the containment policy, or some 60,000 per year of the containment policy. Thus every seven months of the containment policy is one more entire Gulf War of casualties... and these are all the most innocent of civilians. Add those numbers to the losses faced by the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, and even the loopiest liberal twit should be able to figure out what to do next.

And the end of the killing is entirely in Iraqi hands. With the advent of the MOAB and the "Shock and Awe" campaign, plus the ongoing propaganda campaign and the secret negotiations for the surrender of certain Iraqi units, my suspicion is that only those Iraqis who want to commit atrocities for Saddam, will be given the keys to heaven.

But certainly the need to reduce water treatment plants, and civilian infastructure is not needed to the extent it was used in the Gulf War, where we had to freeze enemy units in place in some areas and force others to evacuate Kuwait. I'm glad to see that Bush has been reading my mail, and is about to commit the most humane act in the sad history of Iraq.