'Rivers of Blood:' The West Could Care Less for Deaths of Afghans
September 7, 2009 - ...But the saddest part of this colossal massacre of Afghan civilians is the lack of tears welling up in Western eyes. They seem to keep a meticulous tab of their casualties of their own soldiers, but don't venture the vaguest calculation of how many Afghan civilians are being killed. Thus far, not a single Western human rights watchdog has made an issue of this civilian carnage. Even reputable international organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have remained mum. Western hearts grieve for their own alone. And if the Afghanistan war is becoming increasingly unpopular in the West, it's because of the mounting deaths and casualties among their own military ranks...
'Rivers of Blood:' The West Could Care Less for Deaths of Afghans
The Frontier Post, Pakistan
Victims of NATO air strike lie on beds in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009.
September 7, 2009
As American and European big wigs harp about fighting in Afghanistan to secure their own streets, Afghans pay the price with rivers of innocent blood - the blood of civilians, their children and their women. The latest in this incessant bloodbath was Friday's NATO air strike in Kunduz Province . The attack claimed at least 90 lives, mostly civilian, which the NATO command is reluctant to own up.
Nonetheless, this deadly strike negates the directive of NATO's new commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. Recently, the general ordered his forces to call off assaults when civilian lives are at risk - an implicit acknowledgement of the massive civilian killings that result from coalition operations.
The directive was issued primarily to shuck off the negative consequences of these massacres on NATO's war in Afghanistan, as was the recently issued order of Taliban leader Mullah Omar to his own forces. Because although Taliban actions are directed mostly at military targets, their roadside bombs, suicide bombings, ambushes and frontal attacks nevertheless exact a heavy toll on civilian lives as well.
But the saddest part of this colossal massacre of Afghan civilians is the lack of tears welling up in Western eyes. They seem to keep a meticulous tab of their casualties of their own soldiers, but don't venture the vaguest calculation of how many Afghan civilians are being killed. Thus far, not a single Western human rights watchdog has made an issue of this civilian carnage. Even reputable international organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have remained mum. Western hearts grieve for their own alone. And if the Afghanistan war is becoming increasingly unpopular in the West, it's because of the mounting deaths and casualties among their own military ranks.
Brits are angry with their government for not equipping its troops with lifesaving gear, armored vehicles and helicopters to augment their killing power. And in their media, they prominently and pathetically display funeral scenes of their soldiers killed there with their loved ones all in tears. Meanwhile, American Defense Secretary Robert Gates is embroiled in a bitter row with U.S. news agency The Associated Press for distributing a photo of a mortally wounded American soldier in Afghanistan, arguing that it has further aggrieved the soldier's family. Afghans also grieve for their dead - they don't dance or sing. And it's not just an Afghan civilian's immediate family that mourns the violent death of the deceased. Because of ties of blood, it's the entire tribe that feels aggrieved. Afghan dead have loved ones too - and many.
And then there is the issue of why the U.S.-led invaders are in Afghanistan at all? If it was as a response to the September 11 terrorist assault, Afghanistan was the wrong candidate for invasion. This assault wasn't planned in Afghanistan nor was any Afghan involved. The assault was plotted in Germany and perpetrated by Arab youths who had studied in Western universities and trained at American flying schools. If the invasion was for al-Qaeda, the invaders neither corralled the rump of al-Qaeda nor tried to finish them off. Instead, al-Qaeda was allowed to regroup. In 2005, the Americans even terminated the special [CIA] team formed to capture bin Laden - "dead or alive."
Now we have to live with the shenanigans of Western powers that have reserved for themselves the right to brand entire peoples or states "rogue," and then bully and blackmail those they have branded. They did it with Saddam's Iraq. They branded Iraq a rogue state and then the pogrom of Iraqi civilians ensued, conducted first by manipulating murderous U.N. sanctions and snuffing out thousands of Iraqi children by imposing critical shortages of baby food and medicine, and then by waging a war rejected by the U.N. Security Council which killed countless of civilians. If there was any justice in the world, the entire U.S.-led war party would be facing trial for crimes against humanity.
How different are today's Taliban from their cousins who fought the Soviet invaders - which the West called a Jihad (holy war) and the Soviets labeled terrorism?; Who the West once called freedom fighters and mujahideen (holy warriors), while the Soviets called bandits?
That is a question historians will decide. But for now, Afghanistan is awash with the rivers of civilian blood. And sadly, the are not mourned by outsiders.
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