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Suffer the little children...
Here are a couple of photos of some of the grateful young beneficiaries of our new Nobel Peace Prize President's policies:
They must feel very honored.
Found these via Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.
They must feel very honored.
Found these via Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.
no subject
Why is it that not a single damned person is commenting on the incredible irony represented by the photographs of those children? It's as if everyone just kind of blanked out instead of looking at them.
If you're an American, your tax dollars paid for the bombs that did that. LOOK at them.
YOU DID THAT.
"Peace" Prize...the world is really totally fucking insane.
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Since no one wants to comment on the photos I linked to in post #25 and posted in my answer, I'll describe them: they show young children who were burned and maimed by the US bombs dropped at the orders of our latest Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Unlike all of you, those children will not have the luxury of bickering and snarking over politics on the internet - not for a long time, if ever.
I realize that I am now in the position of the crazy uncle shouting "LOOK at this! It's REAL!" while everyone else politely looks away and sips their cocktails. But...it IS real. The man who is bombing children just won the Nobel Peace Prize. If anyone can explain this to me in a way that makes sense, I would very much appreciate it. But do me a favor, and look at those photos first - so I can take you seriously.
A few people recently accused me of being "angry". I wasn't then, but I am now. What the hell is WRONG with everyone? Has the world gone totally insane?
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Thank, *Goldie*, for at least looking at them. I've been monitoring discussions on several different sites, and you are the FIRST person to actually acknowledge the damn photos.
I can't agree with the phrase "collateral damage". It seems to me that that's just a way of prettying up the fact that we are in a war which is not necessary to our national survival, and in which we know that we will inevitably cause many injuries and deaths among innocent civilians. Just because we call them "collateral", doesn't mean that they somehow don't matter.
I realize that you aren't saying that they don't matter - but I believe that the "collateral damage" phrase was invented and has been historically used to somehow excuse or brush aside these atrocities. Because that's what they are - atrocities.
As for hoping that the Peace Prize will somehow inspire Obama to change his war policies, I devoutly hope that you're right. But his record so far doesn't give me much hope. And forgive me for saying this, but by the same logic we should have awarded Peace Prizes to Stalin and Pol Pot. And George W. Bush, for that matter!
Of course war criminals like Henry Kissinger have won the Nobel Peace Prize before, so this newest award isn't really that unprecedented. But for me, that doesn't make the irony any easier to swallow.
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In that case, can you explain why this war is necessary? If we're going to blow up children, we must have a really good reason - right?
So what is it about the war in Afghanistan that's so vital to the survival of the United States? What's our goal there? What are we accomplishing that's worth maiming and killing thousands of innocent people? Not to mention the destruction or near-destruction of our economy?
If we'd said "screw this!" and pulled out six months ago, what terrible thing(s) would have happened? Any suggestions?
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Just curious, did you look at the photos? Think those kids will be laughing any time soon?
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When did Afghanistan attack us? If you're talking about the 9/11 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt and one was from Lebanon. Why didn't we attack any of those countries?
And if you're talking about the Taliban, we drove them out of power within the first year. Now they're coming back, arguably in part due to our continued presence and our continuing support of a puppet government. What are we accomplishing there, apart from destroying our economy, maiming and killing thousands of our troops, and maiming and killing tens of thousands of civilians? It's been eight years. What have we accomplished?
If you say "Democracy", I might scream!
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And, hmm, collateral damage is part of war.
Having said that, well, it's by no means clear that the current policy in Afghanistan makes much sense. To a great extent this is the fault of Bush; had he not pulled troops from there for the Iraq war but instead focused on capturing Bin Ladin and destroying the Taliban when we were in a position to do so we likely would have been able to withdraw and largely leave the Afghans to their own devices beyond giving some economic aid.
And having said that, well, the "collateral damage" as I called it hurts our relations with the Afghan common people and gives the insurgents (who aren't necessarily all Taliban) recruiting material. And we can't win this thing with just military force.
My guess is that we're going to see a pull-out rather than a build-up because the American people are opposed to the war, people in the Administration (Joe Biden as I recall, for instance) want a different policy, and because the real problem is in Pakistan as far as a threat to the US.
And having said all that, well, if the Taliban were to actually retake the country people will still be dying, but now they'll be women who dare to, well, do much of anything, people who listen to music, ect., ect.. And there will likely still be war; civil war and possibly something with Iran (almost happened before 9/11) or another Afghan neighbor.
One could argue with some legitimacy I think that the fault for all this really goes back to another Nobel Prize winner, Jimmy Carter (to be fair, he got it for his post-presidency activities). If he'd not elected to start the policy of supporting the mujihadeen (holy warriors) against the Soviets we'd likely not had the current situation, or perhaps even 9/11 (recall that Bin Ladin got his start back in that Afghan war). Hmm, well, then again Reagan would probably have supported them, or Congress might have forced the issue.
And as for Obama's Nobel; not to sound like a Republican apologist ('cause I'm no GOP'er) but my impression is that the Nobel committee's point was really to say "Up yours!" to Dubya.
Also occurs to me that the other sitting Presidents who got the prize didn't necessarily have positive results from their actions.
Teddy Roosevelt got it for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese were not terribly thrilled with what they got out of it, and that was a factor toward their later aggressive behaviors and ultimately the WW2 disaster.
Woodrow Wilson got it in part for helping create the League of Nations; uhh, yeah, that worked really well.