This post is just a copy of an anti-war letter to the editor I just sent to my local paper.
I think it is one of my better efforts.
To the editor:
We like to pretend otherwise, but we all know the truth of the old saying: "War is Hell". We like to believe that our soldiers are angels, capable of fighting a clean, surgical war against an enemy with no uniform on a battlefield with no front in villages and cities filled with civilians. But angels don't walk this earth, and as Donald Rumsfeld said, "You go to war with the army you have". What we have is hundreds of thousands of heavily armed young men, many of whom have been scared and traumatized out of their wits, trained to kill and immersed in a violent world. It is no wonder then, that:
1) A leaked video released today shows the crew of a US helicopter shooting nearly a dozen civilians, and then shooting the man (and his two children) who stopped to assist the wounded. We hear one of the helicopter crew members celebrating: "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards!".
2) The military command in Kabul admitted on Sunday (after a two month cover-up) that US special forces had killed three civilian women (two of them pregnant) during a mistaken February raid that also killed two Afghan government officials.
3) General McChrystal, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, while discussing military checkpoints with his troops admitted that "In the nine-plus months I've been here, ... we've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat..."
The General should be sickened, but not amazed, by the numbers his troops have shot. Atrocities like these are evil, but predictable and mundane in war, and we need to accept this, and factor it into our calculations. Are our wars worth the inevitable random slaughter of (amazing numbers of) innocents? Why are we still in Afghanistan? And why did we ever invade Iraq?
Update: must-read thoughts from a US soldier deployed in Iraq about the killing depicted in the video.
You're absolutely right, of course. We shouldn't be in Afghanistan and we should have never invaded Iraq but this, I fear, is another plea that'll fall on deaf ears.
I saw the recently leaked video of the helicopter gunning down innocents, and am horrified, disgusted and saddened -- but this is not new information. This is WAR. People die. No life lost is more valuable than another.
I hate it. It doesn't make sense to me.
We teach children in nursery to care for others, share their resources (toys) and to be understanding of others' beliefs, yet we rarely heed our own advice. The state of the world is horrifying, and I have no idea what can be done to salvage this mess.
What I hate most of all is that we are mostly powerless to affect change. Sure, enough people can affect a piece of legislation or even persuade government action but in the end, it'll be the same class of corrupt, profiteering politicians that rule the world, and send our families and friends into a war... wars that we don't vote for and don't care for.
I can see no point in appealing to the people that make the decisions -- because these are the people that thought it necessary to go to war in the first place. Their ignorance and egos will prevent them from hearing reason.
I hate to be so defeatist, but I can see no resolution... We can send as many letters as we want, - our presidents and prime ministers will continue down the path of childish violence and callous murder.