Christian Democrats in the United States

Wednesday, May 6, 2009 10:16 AM

taliban and U.S. are BOTH in the minority, BOTH murder the innocent

Most of the victims of the latest bombing were innocent civilians.

That report says "over half" of the innocent victims in Afghanistan, numbering 2,200 just last year, were victims of "the other side."

"Over half" in reporting captions probably means 50 to 55%... about even anyway. But that many innocent people a year, so many tens of thousands more than the victims of 9/11, whoever would count that score lower or greater as a measure of victory is criminally insane. The numbers rationalize it, make it a fact in a distant place, our lives insulated from the guilt borne by the name of our nation.

In this Reuters article, the U.S. claims that most of the dead were Taleban fighters. But look at the specifics of the claims. The ground commander said the Taleban fighters were fleeing into two houses, so the air commander bombed both those houses. At no point did U.S. forces know who was already in those houses before the Taleban fighters entered. The Afghan story is quite likely true, that the bombed houses were full of civilians hiding from the fighting.

[U.S. military spokesman Colonel] Julian also said the massive bombs dropped on the houses would make it difficult to examine any remains. "We blew those buildings apart. There's not going to be much to bury," he said.

How can you dig a grave for someone who has been blown to bits by a huge bomb?

In the United States, no police force would drop a bomb to deal with a terrorist or criminal force when innocent hostages are in the building. The message U.S. forces are sending is that third-world people are not good enough for American justice. The message that U.S. military trainers are sending to Afghan and Iraqi military and armed forces is that they can and should be more brutal and destructive than the terrorists. This is the wrong message. By taking on Afghanistan and Iraq as an ideological crusade at the same level as the terrorists, instead of dealing with them as police actions and criminal investigations, United States policy has deliberately slaughtered innocent people when other options have been available. There is no way around this cold fact.

If you look at the total numbers of people, both the U.S.-allied forces and those fighting against them are in the minority, and both persist the minority view that murder of innocent people is justified in pursuit of the guilty.

I am sad the President ordered such an attack. (McCain likely would have ordered it too; it is "company policy.")

There were multiple alternatives. One military alternative at our disposal is to use our satellite resources to track them as they leave, and pursue them covertly on the ground.

Another alternative is to convince the relatives of al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters that the harshest Islamic legal schools of thought are themselves intellectual idols, that worshiping a system of human law rooted in cruelty is far more a worship of idols than cartoons of the prophet of all Islamic schools of thought. Ultimately a cruel legal system is just an excuse for men feel sexual power through violence - trapped by the world, blind and deaf to God's message.

The United States can hardly convince the fighters' relatives of that, if they're all dead because we killed them going after the bad ones. Any idiot can see that.

Beyond that, it's just lies that people tell themselves because they feel trapped in a system, by lust for vengeance, by mechanistic tradition - trapped by an idol. Both sides.

Do people in the U.S. worship our own law and the assumed superiority of our political and religious thought just as much as their "hardliners" worship theirs?

Those who wage this senseless slaughter of innocent people, on both sides, who believe this wholesale sacrifice of the innocent is justified in pursuit of belief, are lying to themselves, or they are lying to everyone, simply to exercise murderous tendencies.

Most of us in the world - your neighbors, near and far, rich and poor, religion or none - do not want to kill anyone, and that's the way life should be.

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