A U.S. sergeant kills 16 civilians in Afghanistan, sparking outrage all over the world.
Why are we surprised? What do we expect?
When President Obama – or anybody else, for that matter – wonders what went wrong, he fantasizes that there’s a right way to wage war, that there’s some kind of discipline that can be applied.
That’s ridiculous. Send soldiers off on a military mission with the best weapons ever, turn the enemy into non-persons and know this: you cannot control your troops.
Because in the process of dehumanizing the enemy, you dehumanize your own soldiers.
That’s why American personnel are cavalierly burning Qurans and gleefully pissing on the dead and going on shooting sprees. War does that to people.
This is not an American problem. The Taliban behave just as viciously, having themselves killed 2,300 civilians. Every military participant behaves viciously. That’s basically the job description, and no variation on the Geneva Conventions can do anything about that.
War brutalizes everyone involved. That includes both the soldiers, who live in terror of land mines and ambush, and the citizens we’re allegedly fighting for, who see us as invaders, not protectors.
And who can blame them?
While I’m on the subject, can someone tell me what our 925 Canadian troops are doing in Afghanistan? Last time I looked, the country’s profoundly corrupt president, Hamid Karzai, was endorsing an edict declaring that “men are fundamental, women are secondary.”
Makes you wonder, to quote the great Country Joe, “What are we fighting for?”
But that’s beside the point. Even if there were valuable principles at stake, war, fought with all the brilliant technology we can muster, is not the way to stand behind them.
All you get from it is fury, trauma and a stack of corpses.
susanc@nowtoronto.com
