n I am writing to set Megan Steffen straight about the conduct of the war in Iraq in regard to her column that appeared in the Thursday, Oct. 19 edition of The Daily Free Press (“What it would be like if U.S. casualties were like those in Iraq,” p.7).

She starts by asking about what would happen if all of Boston suddenly up and died. She later goes on to ask where we would bury the bodies of all the dead.

I implore Steffen — not to be confused with Miss Manners, of course — to ask the families of those killed on Sept. 11. Three thousand were killed in a matter of hours, Steffen, please ask the families and the city of New York what they did with the bodies. Also note that the U.S. Armed Forces are not killing the civilians in Iraq. Thankfully the practice of killing civilians as a tactic in war ended with the dropping of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and we saw how bad it could get when the Allies bombed Dresden in World War II.

The Iraqi insurgents are the ones killing the civilians. They are killing innocent people as a terror tactic and to sensationalize. And please note, Steffen, that any war will incur civilian deaths, call them “collateral damage” or whatever you want, but it is one of the unfortunate outcomes of war.

The United States has taken many steps to avoid civilian casualties, including the invention of smart weapons that have accuracies on the order of inches; but an inevitable factor of war is civilian death.

The United States is doing its part to minimize the impact on civilians, but the insurgents do not fight by our rules, and there is nothing we can do change that. It is unfortunate that innocent people are dying, but unless the Iraqi insurgents lay down their arms tomorrow, I’m sure we will be seeing more.

Justin Kelly

ENG ’08