Bad Place, Wrong Time
What could be a worse nightmare than to be stranded with no avenues of escape, in a situation of war, as an unprotected civilian. That would be in a regular type of war, where the Geneva Convention would be recognized and lived up to. Civilians always, one way or another, bear the brunt of war; they are the ultimate casualties of war.How about when you and your family become targets simply because you're civilians belonging to a country whose neighbour views it and you as a vile pestilence to be eradicated, and those lobbing missiles in your direction are doing so in the hopes of causing maximum damage; to infrastructure, to the population - resulting in the complete destabilization of your country - and worse.
How about when a trusted group of militants - trusted because you believe they are your warriors, your very own, intent on securing your safety and livelihood - embed themselves directly in your civilian neighbourhood, bring along their armaments, and begin lobbing them at your neighbour. Would that not give unease? would you not question their motivations, the logic behind intermingling a quasi-military with a civilian population?
In the first instance the population becomes a deliberate victim of targetted assassinations; murder most foul. In the second instance the population becomes a deliberate dupe of those they trust, who use them with full intent, as cover for the retaliatory attacks certain to occur by a defender seeking to protect its own citizenry, all the while knowing full well that their retaliation will, ipso facto, also target civilians and doing their utmost to contain such "collateral damage".
Well, one might claim that the end result is the same: a terrified population living through a nightmare of nightly concussions resulting in dreadful destruction of civic infrastructure. And then there are the deaths, the many, many casualties. The traumatized children, the severely wounded children whose trusting eyes plead for cessation of this nightmare being visited upon their innocence.
Regardless of which "side" one is located on, the oppressor, the defender, the result is devastatingly similar: inhumane with corpses, once so-recently living, breathing, loving and hopeful people, piling up and hospitals incapable of providing adequate care for the wounded. Indeed, in some instances hospitals themselves become targets; on the one side by design, on the other by accident of happenstance.
One can but feel deep anger on the one hand and regret on the other, for conditions which conspired to bring such a tinder box to full incineration. Shell-shocked populations, despairing for their families' survival in the short term, weeping for their country's survival in the long term.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, July 18, 2006
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