From Flanders Fields - What Has This War Made Of Americans?

Home

Politics

Personal Politics

Flemish Politics

American Politics

World Politics

What Has This War Made Of Americans?

Written by Ivo Moelans

Sunday, 24 December 2006

How many murders by American soldiers go unreported and how many murdered innocent civilians are reported as insurgents?

On December, 21st eight Marines were charged in the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians last year during a bloody, door-to-door sweep in the town of Haditha that came after a roadside bomb killed one of their comrades, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. Most of the defendants are in their twenties. The Marine Corps initially reported that 15 Iraqis died in a roadside bomb blast and that Marines killed eight insurgents in an ensuing firefight. This false account of what really went on was only corrected when it became inevitable because an Iraqi journalism student provided a videotape of the scene to a Time magazine reporter, and the resulting Time story prompted several investigations and sparked international condemnation. How many murders by American soldiers go unreported and how many murdered innocent civilians are reported as insurgents is of course unknown. As a side note I still would like to know the difference between 'insurgents' and what Reagan used to call 'freedom fighters'.

I saw a news item on TV where the father of one of the defendants cried because of the terrible ordeal his son was about to undergo. He could face a dishonorable discharge and loss of all pay and allowances, if convicted, and a life sentence in prison. His son had probably not asked to be shipped thousands of miles away from his home. They both probably believed the blatant lies of the insane criminals they elected to be their government that he was going to 'liberate' a country and make America safe of WMD's. They probably never guessed he was only going to protect the interests of people far richer than they, who don't care what happens to those they send out to do their dirty work and who wouldn't for a second contemplate to send their own offspring in harm's way. Sadly, the father probably didn't cry when thousands of children died in a country he couldn't even point out on a map. Those weren't his children after all, they were not even children or humans, they were mere collateral damage and hey, after all, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

The question is not "What have Americans made of this war?" but "What has this war made of Americans?"

Nevertheless his grief is real and I do feel for him, but that doesn't mean his son didn't murder innocent civilians. And yet, how is this different from bombing a country to invade it and in the process kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians and children who are by definition innocent. Children, who all have fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, who all have cried, who all have asked "Why?", who all will hate America for the rest of their lives, who all hope that one day American children will die in their tens of thousands.

The hypocritical Christians who condone all this would do well to remember that on the 28th of this month the innocent children who were murdered by Herod are remembered. It's as good a day as any to remember the innocent children murdered by Bush and his accomplices.

The question is not "What have Americans made of this war?" but "What has this war made of Americans?"

Comments

Add New

RSS