Continuing in the fine media tradition of treating dead civilians mostly as a problem for the people who kill them, USA Today offers readers this (4/16/10):
Deaths of Afghan Civilians Double
Accidental killings hurt NATO effort
By Paul Wiseman
USATODAYKABUL â┚¬” Deaths of Afghan civilians by NATO troops have more than doubled this year, NATO statistics show, jeopardizing a U.S. campaign to win over the local population by protecting them against insurgent attacks.
“They create a desert and call it peace.”
Journalism 101- Newsreaders are more interested in stories that bring home how the circumstance affects them, not the other guy.
Don’t you think many “progressives” echo this sentiment with their talk of “unwinnable wars” and “killing civilians creates more terrorists”?
Forget appeals to our common humanity. These are the “practical” reasons for opposing US actions.
So, I’d ask them, “What if the wars *were* ‘winnable’? What if killing civilians furthered that goal?”
Wouldn’t you like to know how they’d reply?
We progressives would probably stress the utter immorality of killing people–the Afghani people–who pose no threat to us. Pointing out the ‘practical’ reasons for opposing the practice (and war) is an attempt to speak in the terms of those who still think we can ‘win’ if we win the hearts and minds of the Afghani people. (And where have we heard that kind of thing before…)
Paul, for me it comes down to empathy. If I can’t put myself in the place of the persons whose lives our gummint has destroyed in its masters’ quest for wealth and power, then I really have no moral authority to speak on the matter, do I?
Perhaps these “pragmatic” points can be utilized secondarily in the context of an opposition grounded in our common humanity, but aren’t they ancillary to why we’re whatever you want to call us (I just try to be a mensch, so I’ll go with that): because we supposedly give a shit about other people?
Y’know, that whole Golden Rule thingie?
God, I’m naive, aren’t I?
U.S. killed @ 200,000 Japanese CIVILIANS in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. {And before that, there was Wounded Knee–so what’s new…?}