'Twas Not We!
A great sigh of regret when news comes through the wires that another innocent civilian has been killed inadvertently by UN-approved troops stationed in Afghanistan. Accidents certainly can and do happen. All the more so when foreign troops who experience deaths from among their national contingent of soldiers are edgy and trigger-nervous about exposing themselves to the nasty finality of being sent home in a body bag.When the hapless shooters' origins have been identified, another great sigh. This time of relief, when it is not one's own national armed services that were involved. As though it makes a difference. As though Afghans can distinguish one foreign national's armed contingents from another. To the Afghan population they are all foreigners, all invaders, all not welcome, despite that their government has extended its anxious invitation.
Now here's a young man on a motorcycle, shot and killed (haven't we read that very particular story time and again?) and his young brother, a child of ten, seriously injured, possibly by the same bullet that took his brother's life, passing through them both. The young boy still alive because he was behind his brother who took the brunt of the brutal bullet's passage, entering one innocent skull then the other. Through the auspices of a Canadian combat logistics patrol.
An accident. So dreadfully sorry. We make every effort to exercise caution. Sometimes things go awry. Not intentionally. We've lost our own, too, in trying to protect you people. You must understand. This is terribly regretful. Need we remind you that when the insurgents attack they kill as many innocents, aside from foreign military, as they can? It is they from whom we seek to protect you. And in so doing occasionally err.
"Whenever they think they want to shoot someone, they can. Nobody can ask anything about it", one of the young boy's uncles raged at the older boy's funeral. "That's why they shoot us like goats, like birds, like animals... We don't expect them to kill our people, those Canadians, Americans and foreign people. It would be good if they left our country." This while surgeons at NATO's multinational hospital at Kandahar Airfield tried to safe the life of the boy.
Leave, just like that? We would love to. Honestly, we would. And then? What happens then? Is that really what you want? Are you prepared to submit once again to the heavy hand of the Taliban? To sacrifice the future of your children? Yes, we know, here are two whose futures have already been sacrificed to no avail. But we're talking about a wider scope, the children of Afghanistan, the women....
We do not really need the exasperated outrage of Afghan President Hamid Karzai lecturing NATO troops on the inadmissible killing of innocent civilians by coalition forces. The issue is not only politically controversial, it is humanly critical. Foreign forces are very well aware that they are stationed in Afghanistan at the behest of the government, the approval of the UN, but on tolerance, one that is wearing very thin, by the people of Afghanistan. Avoidance is key, but obviously not always possible.
"It was clear that this was an accident and not the result of enemy activity", said Canadian military spokeswoman Captain Josee Bilodeau. It is, at present, under investigation by military police. Ironic, isn't it, that Canadian troops were recently issued informational data instructing them on the sensitivities, the traditions and religion of the people of Afghanistan. As Muslims, particularly during Ramadan.
It is bizarre, is it not, that during the sacred month of Ramadan other Muslims, the Islamist terrorists, drive home their message of hate and bloodlust by targeting ordinary civilians with suicide bombers, sacrificing as many numbers as practically feasible to the ineffable will of Allah.
Labels: Human Fallibility, Troublespots
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, October 03, 2007
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