"We've
worn out our welcome." I actually heard
some television political pundit make this absurd comment about the U.S.
military presence in Afghanistan. Well,
duh. The latest outrageous act that has
everyone in a tizzy and wondering if we should "rethink" our presence in
Afghanistan is the mass murder of 16 unarmed civilians, including 9 children by
a soldier who supposedly went berserk.
Before that, it was the "accidental" burning of the Qurans, the
desecration of corpses, and the "kill team" murders. Though innocent people are routinely killed
as a matter of course as part of war, it is only the sensational atrocities
that disturb the conscience of the American public and cause the government
damage control teams to scramble. Senior
military officials, in this case including the President, offers its heartfelt
apologies and condolences, and tries to explain it all away as an accident--an
anomaly. Speaking about this recent
incident, President Obama said: "This incident
is tragic and shocking, and does not represent the exceptional character of our
military and the respect that the United States has for the people of
Afghanistan." How is it that President
Obama does not see that the senseless deaths of Afghan civilians by U.S. drone
strikes, bombs or bullets must be equally tragic and shocking for the Afghan
people? No matter how "exceptional the
character" of our military, when it is used in an illegal, immoral war of
choice, it is being used wrongly. It is
our foreign policy that does not bear up under the scrutiny of a moral
lens. It is our aggressive war that does
not respect the people of Afghanistan.
Innocent
civilians are killed by the U.S. military routinely--so routinely that it
usually doesn't make the news. Whether
the killing was at the hand of a deranged soldier or by drone missiles--it
hardly matters. By trying to come up
with explanations or justifications for these
"unfortunate incidents," we avoid confronting the real issue--the fact that for
10 years the U.S. has illegally waged war of aggression on a sovereign
country. Albert Einstein said: "It is my conviction that killing under the
cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
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