shame on us
imagine the national guard, fbi, local police, or any other armed force for that matter, deploying en masse here in america. not so far-fetched--it happens all too frequently. it's also not uncommon for civilian casualties to ensue. (vicki weaver falling to a federal government sniper's bullet, and victoria snelgrove to a local policeman's supposedly "non-lethal" projectile, are only a couple of the better-publicized incidents that spring immediately to mind).
almost without exception, public opinion here in the us quickly shifts to the victims in these cases, and we are extremely hard on our armed responders for any perceived excess or irresponsible force. we understand the importance and sanctity of civilian life, ("we the people" is our most fundamental tenet), and we certainly refuse to have it taken lightly.
so it is this morning that i'm sickened to read once again of our armed forces' "accidental" taking of afghani civilian lives. the "official" us government party line is all about the taliban taking "human shields", as if this somehow sufficiently explains what our forces have done. but put american faces on those "human shields", place them at ruby ridge, or in the crowd outside a world series celebration, and tell me if for one nanosecond we would cut any slack whatsoever to the commanders who ran the operations, or any individuals who were careless in their use of lethal force. we would demand accountability. as americans, we MUST demand accountability.
in the case of the undetermined number of afghani innocents (some say 160+, though we of course swear it couldn't possibly be that many) hamid karzai has some extreme and extremely eloquent words: "we cannot justify in any manner, for whatever number of taliban, for whatever number of significantly important terrorists, the accidental or otherwise loss of civilians."
to me, if i were to substitue "weather underground" or "aryan nation" or name your violent american extremist group for "taliban", and "american citizens" for "citizens", and read the sentence again, it would not seem out of place here in this land that i love, or even overseas where our good men and women of our armed forces struggle every day to protect us all. (captain phillips would likely agree they do a pretty damn good job most days and in most places). but why and how our government can advise us to essentially sit by and let these particular atrocities go when the people involved are citizens of any other nation, is beyond me.
if we were truly the nation we aspire to be, we would be the first and most vocal defenders of those innocents, not the last.
shame on us.
almost without exception, public opinion here in the us quickly shifts to the victims in these cases, and we are extremely hard on our armed responders for any perceived excess or irresponsible force. we understand the importance and sanctity of civilian life, ("we the people" is our most fundamental tenet), and we certainly refuse to have it taken lightly.
so it is this morning that i'm sickened to read once again of our armed forces' "accidental" taking of afghani civilian lives. the "official" us government party line is all about the taliban taking "human shields", as if this somehow sufficiently explains what our forces have done. but put american faces on those "human shields", place them at ruby ridge, or in the crowd outside a world series celebration, and tell me if for one nanosecond we would cut any slack whatsoever to the commanders who ran the operations, or any individuals who were careless in their use of lethal force. we would demand accountability. as americans, we MUST demand accountability.
in the case of the undetermined number of afghani innocents (some say 160+, though we of course swear it couldn't possibly be that many) hamid karzai has some extreme and extremely eloquent words: "we cannot justify in any manner, for whatever number of taliban, for whatever number of significantly important terrorists, the accidental or otherwise loss of civilians."
to me, if i were to substitue "weather underground" or "aryan nation" or name your violent american extremist group for "taliban", and "american citizens" for "citizens", and read the sentence again, it would not seem out of place here in this land that i love, or even overseas where our good men and women of our armed forces struggle every day to protect us all. (captain phillips would likely agree they do a pretty damn good job most days and in most places). but why and how our government can advise us to essentially sit by and let these particular atrocities go when the people involved are citizens of any other nation, is beyond me.
if we were truly the nation we aspire to be, we would be the first and most vocal defenders of those innocents, not the last.
shame on us.
posted by kad barma at 8:01 AM
1 Comments:
So I was going to post on this general issue a couple of days ago, but have been bogged down writing a final paper. Kad is exactly correct. Yes, there are going to be those just passing by who are killed when there is war, but we have been careless in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There are two downsides to this. The first is we are killing people who are not the targets of our action. That is flat out wrong.
The second downside is that we are losing the propaganda war (and the propaganda war is important) because of the large numbers of dead. In Pakistan we are reported to have killed 700 to get about 16 Taliban leaders. Even if the numbers are badly inflated and the real number is 200 or 300, it is still too many, from moral point of view, and from an effectiveness point of view.
I have avoided use of the term "innocent civilian" because I believe that everyone has political responsibility and if you allow the Taliban or Al Qaeda to live on your doorstep you are at least indirectly giving them support, and they are looking for that degree of support from everyone. They are looking for the general population to passively accept them and pay taxes to the Taliban or AQ or whoever. But, that doesn't make those people legitimate military targets. We need less firepower and more getting out amongst the people and protecting them.
I recommend Accidental Guerrilla, by David Kilcullen.
Regards — Cliff
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