Thursday, April 29, 2010

AFGHANISTAN PRISONERS: A SHOCKING LACK OF MORAL SERIOUSNESS CHARGES MARGARET WENTE IN A COLUMN WITH A SHOCKING LACK OF MORAL SERIOUSNESS

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY MARGARET WENTE IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

"There has been a shocking lack of moral seriousness in this debate..."

To the extent that may be true, Ms. Wente, I can only say there is a shocking lack of moral seriousness in your column.

Pretty close to vapid, that.
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"It would be a problem if there were killing fields. Where are the killing fields?"

There were killing fields, my blithely ignorant friend.

After Rumsfield stated in Nazi-like fashion that all the Taleban prisoners should be killed or walled away, 3,000 were driven in batches out to the desert and suffocated in vans.

The facts have been documented by Scots documentary film maker, Jamie Doran.

America’s initial carpet bombing, which was used to decimate the Taleban, while the Taleban’s nemesis, the Northern Alliance advanced to take over, killed God knows how many, and the Northern Alliance contained some of the ugliest cut-throats on the planet, but that’s okay, they were our cut-throats.

And there is no counting how many thousands of innocents have been killed by America's years of careless bombing since. There are scores of instances of everything from whole wedding parties to village elders being slaughtered by mistake. We get no count, of course.

And what about the secret prisons – places like Bagram Air Base or Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean? We have no idea what goes on in those secret, ghastly places.

The entire crusade has been a stupidly wasteful, immoral project. The Taleban never attacked us. They need never been our enemy. They are backward, but so is every other party there.

People like the writer of this comment and Ms. Wente swallow all the propaganda about purpose and women and schools. Most women in Afghanistan today wear the burka, and most schools opened for girls close out of fear, and it ain’t the Taleban alone causing the fear.

It’s a 14th century place. It cannot be changed in anyone’s lifetime, although you can just keep killing, the way Israel has for 60 years in its neighborhood. We do not belong there. We’ve only contributed to the mass of abuse and killing and stupidity in the name of keeping the Pentagon happy.
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"War is horrible, and bad things are done - even by good people."

This is the oldest, most meaningless cliché known.

What a thoroughly immoral way to excuse psychopathic activities.

I heard an interview with a (former) American soldier who was on that Wiki-leaks video of the helicopter pilots blasting people into pieces of meat. He arrived to see the mess, and says he now despises the expression, "War is hell."

The American soldier from the video said clearly that the horror people saw on that video is what war actually is, and the cliché just doesn’t cut it.

We protect ourselves from the realities of war simply so we can keep treating it as the moving of colorful little lead soldiers on a map and doing good things for others.

Those in power have a severe responsibility to go to war only when it is absolutely necessary, because, whether necessary or not, the war will be filled with abuse and horror.

The invasion of Afghanistan was not necessary. Our continued presence is not necessary. Our soldiers have been reduced to unacceptable acts to no worthy purpose.