The Bravery of Targeting Unarmed Civilians

Dees Illustration

Ahmad Barqawi

Activist Post

How easily the value of a human life diminishes when the victims are “merely” Afghan civilians? And how impetuously the collective loss of innocent lives in that miserable part of the world can be written off as “collateral damage”; a rather callous catchphrase that sure gets tossed around casually by imperial powers to validate their own crimes and further anesthetize world public opinion. We were told that bin Laden was caught in Pakistan, executed and his corpse was thrown into the sea, yet somewhere in a remote and impoverished village in southwest Afghanistan children are still being ravaged everyday by the overpowering reality of an ongoing foreign occupation, drone warfare, and all sorts of “intelligent weapons” run by not so intelligent Western politicians.

Imagine being abruptly awoken in the middle of the night to the deafening blasts of bombs falling on your house; you take a couple of seconds to try and shake yourself out of this awful dream, but the shrieking sounds of your children screaming themselves hoarse leaves no room for doubt that it is real.  The scorching thick cloud of dust fills your throat and inflames your eyes; and before you even think what to make of what’s happening, a second bomb is dropped to finish off what the first one didn’t.  You feel the ground beneath you rattle and entire walls collapse before an ominous silence takes over; no screaming, not even a breathing sound is heard in a house full of people . . . only the buzzing noise of a NATO fighter jet (which by now you know by heart) fading into the distance.  You realize that in a matter of minutes your whole world has violently changed, and in a very horrible way.

This is not some far-fetched scenario or one of those only-in-the-movies moments; this is exactly what happened late last month, on May 28th.

Just before midnight, an unwarranted NATO air raid targeted two civilian houses in a rural area of Afghanistan’s Helmand province, killing two women and twelve children (including a two-year-old baby); allegedly mistaking them for — well, what else other than “Taliban insurgents”.

But isn’t that exactly what the United States is doing? Exploiting entire nations through excessive military might and intimidation solely to nourish its pathological hegemonic ambitions and further advance its geopolitical interests in Southeast Asia and the Middle East?

Of course, as is usually the “standard protocol” in the aftermath of such “unfortunate incidents,” Western coalition officials promised a full investigation into the circumstances of this botched attack, but let’s not hold our breath; the fact that several previous attacks which resulted in civilian casualties went un-probed, with no disciplinary measures or even a real inquiry into the matter, leads us to believe that this, for all intents and purposes, is no more than just an attempt to massage the feelings of the victims’ relatives and quell public anger.  

Case in point: early last March, in typical NATO fashion, ISAF forces “accidentally” killed nine Afghan children (aged 7 to 12) while they were collecting wood to heat their homes in a mountainous area in Kunar Province.  And just like Maj. Gen. Toolan, General David Petraeus issued a carefully worded statement; not offering an investigation, but a brief apology stating that “these deaths should never have happened”; that the bloody episode was a result of a “miscommunication” between the aircrew and the troops on the ground who — and this is the best bit — identified children under the age of twelve as “armed and dangerous militants”. That statement was the only justice General Petraeus could afford to the victims’ families.

None of the nine children was aware that the seemingly simple act of collecting firewood would come at such a high cost, but sometimes the human race is not very human at all, and civilized nations are anything but civilized.

With the increasing toll of civilians killed from NATO operations in the country it is hard to believe that Western coalition forces cannot possibly avoid casualties among innocent civilians; especially with all the high-tech laser guided missiles, “smart” bombs, and advanced assault weaponry with so-called “pinpoint accuracy.”  Not to mention of course the untold numbers of on-the-ground intelligence-gathering units and collaborators; but, hey, then again it could be just the thrill of flying a state-of-the-art military aircraft over a civilian population, combined with the intoxication of enjoying the god-like power in deciding with the push of a button who will die and who will live. The “bravery” of an armed foreign soldier targeting defenseless children from a Black Hawk helicopter is astonishing indeed.

This crime gave us yet again a fleeting — albeit frightening — glimpse into the morally-barren landscape of a Western occupation where death reigns supreme and humanity is in an eternal deep slumber; children get killed left, right, and center, and the ones who are spared the killing are left with a tremendous psychological damage that they’ll never outgrow.  Sadly, those are the lucky ones.

In his speech at a Memorial Day ceremony, addressing the families of America’s fallen troops, President Obama said: “To those of you who mourn the loss of a loved one today, my heartbreak goes out to you. I love my daughters more than anything in the world, and I cannot imagine losing them. I can’t imagine losing a sister or brother or parent at war. The grief so many of you carry in your hearts is a grief I cannot fully know.” 

Well it’s that same exact grief that viciously preys on the hearts of more and more ordinary people every single day in Afghanistan.  It’s that same exact grief that has become a crippling reality for hundreds of Afghan parents; a lump of pain and sorrow that is too great for anyone to carry it through. And yet they do without “presidential condolence letters” or a Memorial Day of their own.

Ahmad Barqawi, a Jordanian freelance columnist & writer based in Amman, he has done several studies, statistical analysis and research on economic and social development in Jordan.