embedded in the floating world
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nmazca.blog embedded in the floating world |
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The images and reports of the punitive action being undertaken by the Marines against the population of this city -- 300-500,000 people that have had transit, food and water cut off since Monday -- is frankly disgusting. I am left to wonder how this mission to "pacify" violent resistance will be considered a success if it entails killing and wounding what are reported to be hundreds of residents, including many children. I question the logic (and the morality) of this occupation when the tactics used do more to harm, humiliate and kill the people who were supposed to have been liberated from abuse and exploitation. Yes, there are obviously those among the Iraqis who have taken up arms against American troops. Those troops have the right and necessity to defend themselves and the security of the general population. But are siege tactics that punish everyone within a location the only means to deal with this situation? Does killing the children of the people who might've welcomed American intervention serve the cause of stability... or, I might add, stem the tide of anti-American sentiment and support for terrorism around the world? Or do the people who conceive and approve of these operations only concern themselves with sending messages and making examples? Do these civilian deaths and the clamoring for self-determination in Iraq not matter because the administration's goal is to show how tough, resolved and unshakable it is, no matter the cost or carnage? If, for a moment, one takes that view of the situation, then how are the tactics of our government and our forces any different than those of Al Qaeda? Both organizations employ tactical violence to strike at the civilian population, military personnel or the infrastructure of the other. Both characterize their actions as means to defend faith, honor, identity and lifestyle... and to avenge attacks and incursions that the other committed in the past. Both entities also compromise and endanger the constituencies for whom they claim to fight because their indiscriminate shock tactics against civilians encourage their foes to respond in kind. And so here we are on April 8th 2004: More than 650 U.S. troops dead and 3,000 injured in Iraq and Afghanistan; at least 10-15 times as many civilians killed and injured in both countries (the Pentagon has not kept count of enemy combat casualties). Civilian security and aid workers killed or taken hostage (three Japanese are being held at this moment). More than a dozen journalists killed -- most of them by U.S. troops. Increasing discontent and armed resistance across Iraq. Tenuous central control in Afghanistan, where, incidentally, opium production will be at record levels for the second year in a row. No evidence of an Iraqi biological, chemical or nuclear weapons program. No trace (or mention) of Osama bin Laden. And within our borders, a program of reactionary fear and isolation, along with a spiralling budget deficit, that is focused on the spectre and symptoms of terrorism, but not the causes. At what point will we admit that there is a shortfall -- a dysfunction -- between our methods and expectations? How many more people will die before a change in tactics and exchange takes place? Or should we just prepare ourselves for a long, hard slog of pre-emptive and retaliatory violence that ends when neither side has anymore families to target? As intelligent and interconnected human beings, we owe ourselves and our world much, much more. A letter to Congress, the first I've written in five years |
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