 |
| Our taxes paid for the trillions of dollars spent on our longest--and among the bloodiest, costliest and most expensive--US wars ever. And for what? |
Many of us were shocked by news of a recent drone strike in Kabul that was aimed at taking out terrorists but which killed mostly civilians. But that incident represents only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much of the longest war in our nation's history was conducted.
In an August 21, 2021, edition of the Washington Post, Ian Cameron describes how he put in eight-hour shifts routinely killing people from an air-conditioned bunker. He had signed up as a Marine thinking he would face constant danger in combat zones, but in his article he writes:
"From an operations center made mostly of plywood in the middle of the Helmand desert in southern Afghanistan, our team of intelligence, artillery, and aviation specialists deployed some of the world's most sophisticated technology against Taliban fighters who were primarily armed with rifles designed during World War II."
He goes on to describe how over a nine month period he would get up and join others on his team for a hearty breakfast then kill people for eight hours, take a shower, exercise in the gym, enjoy a dinner of fried steak or salmon fillet, watch television and get a good night's sleep in preparation for another shift the next day.
If this doesn't result in any feelings of horror or shame on our part, it may reveal how calloused we've become to the suffering caused by modern warfare. Only a hundred years ago, when the first bombs were dropped from the air on military and civilian targets in the Spanish Civil War, people around the world were outraged by the terror and destruction this kind of warfare represented. Then only a few decades later two atomic bombs were detonated in Japan and saturation bombings in multiple European cities caused the fiery deaths and mutilations of thousands more human lives.
In reflecting on instances where innocent civilians were a part of a day's "collateral damage" Cameron writes, "It was in these instances that the video-game stopped and the flesh-and-blood consequences of what we were doing hit me--a wave of sickness, regret and second guessing. Yet my routine on the base would remain largely unchanged. I'd work out, grab a hot shower, and listen to the Marines in the cafeteria debate the merits of competing Bachelor candidates over chocolate ice cream. I'd go back to my can and call my girl friend. With a hollow feeling in my stomach, I'd stare at the aluminum roof and drift off to sleep."
Kyrie Eleison. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.
Here's the link to the Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-killed-taliban-fighters-from-an-air-conditioned-room-did-it-even-help/2021/08/20/66522f2c-0049-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html
2 comments:
Choose your weapon, the end result is always the same. The madness seems to never end, old white men send young men to war!
And with the kind of religious language that has always accompanied human sacrifice of the young in the prime of their life, and with the awful enterprise of war employing terms like the 'ultimate sacrifice,' 'giving their lives for their country,' being sent on 'missions' and 'campaigns,' never focusing on their being trained to efficiently maim and kill people and to plunder and destroy property as commanded.
Post a Comment