I've become so desensitized to violence that when I watched a video recently released by wiki links of a 2007 U.S. military operation in Iraq, I could comprehend what I was seeing but separated myself from it.
I saw the Reuters reporter in the video killed by gunfire from helicopters overhead, and I watched as his body was run over by a U.S. military vehicle. Also captured in the video is the moment when a driver pulled up to assist the wounded. The van the driver was in was fired upon. Inside the van were two children who were shot but somehow survived. After realizing there were wounded children at the scene, a request by U.S. soldiers to take the children to a U.S. military hospital was denied by commanders of the combat unit.
In another incident in an Afghan village in February of this year, three women and two men were killed by U.S. Special Forces. Two of the women were pregnant; one was a teenager. The two men were local officials; the women collectively had 13 children. The gathering at the compound that was raided was a baby shower. The U.S. military initially claimed the women had been victims of an honor killing but later admitted the women were mistakenly killed during the nighttime raid. Vice Admiral William McRaven offered two goats to the surviving family members and asked for forgiveness.
A U.S. airstrike this month in Farah province in Afghanistan killed at least 100 civilians. The U.S. military confirmed it had conducted the airstrikes aimed at the Taliban. NBC's Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklazewski has said the military claimed the civilians were killed by the Taliban using grenades. Details of the incident are difficult to find. The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated the U.S. airstrikes hit civilian houses and that an Afghan Red Cross volunteer was also killed.
On May 7, the New York Times reported that a farmer, Muhammad Jan, said that fighting in his village, Shiwan, was taking place between U.S. forces and insurgents. Muhammad said women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses.
"Six houses were bombed and destroyed completely, and the people in the houses still remain under the rubble," he said, "and now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies."
Looking at these casualties, one has to ask, if these killings happen again and again, are they really accidents? If the U.S military conducts an operation to "clear" Kandahar of the Taliban, as planned in June, how many more civilians will be killed as collateral damage or from botched raids stemming from bad intelligence?
Would any of us react with anything other than grief and outrage if soldiers of a foreign power broke into our house in the middle of the night and killed our children and family members? Even if the foreign military leaders apologized and offered money as compensation for our family member's deaths, it is doubtful that would ease our pain.
Strength through Peace and Progressive Democrats of America are holding our monthly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday at Rep. Betsy Markey's downtown Fort Collins office at the Opera Galleria on College Avenue.
Please join us to tell Markey the people demand the killing stop.
Zach Heath lives in Fort Collins and is a member of
Strength Through Peace (www.cjpe.org/stp).