Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Musings: Tit for Tat

As expected, President Obama came out strongly yesterday against the botched Christmas Day airline bombing, saying:

Those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the United States will do more than simply strengthen our defenses. We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us, whether they are from Afghanistan or Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the US homeland.”

And then I read:

The United Nations reports the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan jumped by ten percent during the first ten months of 2009. The UN says at least 2,038 civilians died during that period.

Try as I might, I just can’t understand why it’s OK for us, but not for the other guys, to slaughter innocent men, women and children.

Yes, the report indicates that insurgents — the people who are fighting to get us out of their country — killed most of the civilians. But we killed plenty, too:

UNAMA said that 468 deaths were caused by pro-government forces, including NATO and US-led forces, and 166 by "other actors".

And that's just how many have been counted.

Now the conflict will escalate as we send in more troops, and the toll on civilians will increase, too. Don’t we bear at least some responsibility for the deaths that will result from a build up that we initiate, for objectives that remain unclear, even if it’s not our troops doing the killing?

Al-Qaeda has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing, saying it’s in retaliation for American air strikes against the group in Yemen, a place where the U.S. is strengthening its presence:

Defense and counterterrorism officials say the United States has quietly been supplying military equipment, intelligence and training to Yemeni forces to root out suspected al Qaeda hide-outs.

So just how long does this deadly tit for tat go on before we try another approach?

Meanwhile, the American public remains as oblivious as ever to what’s really going on, and as suggestive as ever to the risks of foreign threats. As a result, they’re willing to go to the airport 2.5 hours early for a flight, tolerate increasingly invasive screening measures and keep an eye peeled for “suspicious” people, saying it makes them feel more secure — even though the measures already imposed failed to protect the airlines from an attack.

The reality is, those tourists at the Honolulu Airport are a lot more likely to drown on Kauai or die in a car wreck while driving to or from the airport, then get blown up by a terrorist. Yet for some reason, they see the terrorist as the greater threat.

How many, I wonder, are even aware that their own government is daily taking actions that contribute greatly to world instability, and thus their own insecurity — even as they look to that same government to enact measures to protect them?

11 comments:

  1. I have mixed feelings about the "War on Terror". On one hand it has sucked thousand of lives and billions of dollars into a dark vortex of despair, with no end in sight.

    On the other hand we are dealing with people who really do want to destroy everything we hold dear. Religious fundamentalists are not going away if we ignore them, they will continue to spread their agenda of hate and develop the capability to become a greater threat in the future.

    What is the right answer?

    Probably not what we are doing now. There may not be a right answer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the right answer was the right opportunity...before the U.S. government decided to take part in launching an attack on its own people.
    That opportunity, actually there were many, was warning by U.S. intelligence sources, FBI and others of an attack. Those warnings were stifled because it would have ruined the plans of Bush/Cheney.
    HAD those warnings been heeded, all those Iraqi people would not have been sent to hell and numerous other devastating human rights atrocities would not have been inflicted on human beings.
    MOST important, had those warnings been acted on according to SOPs, the United States of America would not have created an infestation of terrorism coming from every nook and cranny of the globe...including its own back yard.
    Yemen is the next false flag they say?
    That quote from Obama is disgusting. He sounds just like the Bush administration. I guess he doesnʻt have the ingenuity or the courage to figure out a way to get around the personal threats on his/familyʻs life.

    ReplyDelete
  3. While we're at it, could someone give a preview of what will be the apathetic rationalization for the highly likely Taliban bloodbath of over a million Afgans should such an overlysimplistic event as an immediate withdrawal were to take place right now?
    The United States has more than a passing responsibility for what happened in Cambodia years ago after we "left the building."
    Are you so selfish that you'll contently sit through another such holocaust?

    ReplyDelete
  4. No easy solution to why people hate us in the world enough to kill us and their own kind....too.

    Perhaps we are dealing with a deeper subject than war vs no war.

    The struggle against "evil" is in the human races' DNA. The problem is "we" are the evil in the eyes of those who want to kill our culture, and "they" are the evil ones that want to do so.

    An impossible situation to be in.

    ReplyDelete
  5. No easy solution to why people hate us in the world enough to kill us and their own kind....too.

    Perhaps we are dealing with a deeper subject than war vs no war.

    The struggle against "evil" is in the human races' DNA. The problem is "we" are the evil in the eyes of those who want to kill our culture, and "they" are the evil ones that want to do so.

    An impossible situation to be in.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Are you so selfish that you'll contently sit through another such holocaust?"

    December 30, 2009 8:01 AM


    Who are you talking to or addressing this to?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Who are you talking to or addressing this to?

    The "we need to immediately withdraw the troops" people.

    Since you couldn't figure that out without help; you must be one of them (Oh yeah...the "you" is Anon 8:01 AM).

    ReplyDelete
  8. "Since you couldn't figure that out without help; you must be one of them (Oh yeah...the "you" is Anon 8:01 AM).

    TO:December 30, 2009 10:38 PM

    Just love the smugness. SOOOO american. 8:01 AM was not me. I was just before.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ahhh, the lower case "a" of petty disrespect for America.
    That's SOOOO parasitical.

    ReplyDelete
  10. No, actually itʻs not petty disrespect
    for america, itʻs hefty disrespect for america.

    ReplyDelete

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