This doesn't put my debating skills under a positive light, however, how dare you, wolfwill23. If you could just step back for a minute away from the manipulation of the press and media and think as a sentient human being, you would appreciate the whole thing on a humanitarian scale, not the mechanical irritation your poor sense of patience for 'bad news' has misled you to.
I will not go on attacking or insulting you, for it would be too easy to do that, instead, I'm going to enlighten you, since you seem to be devoid of certain facts. The first fact being that all of this turmoil and humanitarian disaster is basically due to indirect fault of the west; the western world, which includes everyone from America to nice old passive France. Everyone knows how America encouraged the Muhajideen to overthrow the Russians, but I wonder if people appreciate just how callous the Western world was in turning its back to Afghanistan when it was all over. When the Russian enemy was defeated and various regimes took over Afghanistan, I wonder who was there to back them up. I wonder, who was there to help the humanitarian crisis that has lasted for more than an entire decade. Yes, you may have lost 5,000 in one go, as you claimed, and I hate myself for sounding so callous, but these people have known suffering a lot longer than America, or any other country in the world in the west will ever know in this modern age. Try various fanatical regimes ravaging the country, burying its own country into poverty, making three out of five children orphans, condemming innocent women, children and perfectly civilised men into a life of no opportunities, wealth and no freedom. This, and a life completely devoid of the essentials of human existence, has been going on for decades now, and you have the audacity to stand up and moan about how a few days of reporting has tired your patience and ears out.
A little out of focus.
Think about that statistic, how three out o five children have no parents. How everywhere they go and tread on they have to flinch because 45% of Afghanistan is coverd in mines; some that have been left there, some have been put there maliciously recent. Most people don't even want the Taliban, they hate them more than the West does, for chrissakes! But you just sit down with them and let them tell you of how it was BEFORE the taliban, when the Muhajideen would not only kill women for showing skin, but rape them beforehand.
With stories, images and numbers as seen in Afghanistan, its not a question of 'playing up the camera', as you so humanly said. Their grief and pain is quite genuine, and has been lasting for a considerable amount of time, longer than the period since the 11th.
I condemn the attacks on America, and I grieve for your loss, and I fully back the course of action America is taking, but I object to the lack of humanity that some people display, the lack of humanity that put all of us into this mess in the first place. My view remains the same as always, September 11th, horrible and ghastly as it was, was a wake up call for some people. Obviously, some people are still very much asleep, if all you can think about is how irritating it is to hear of Afghan suffering. So you can hear all you want about how people died on YOUR territory, but you get irritated with reports from Afghanistan; THAT is a double-standard as the next hypocritical doubt from the Spin-doctor's note book ever was.
We all know of the Taliban and its cruelty, but that doesn't reflect the way everyone is. What most people in the Afghan region think, feel and say, IS anger, but not the same type of anger. Their anger is centered on how the West paid them to wage war, how their country was, against their own will, rushed for the front lines of a brutal war (that led to several wars), and then, when all was said and done, the West turned its back and left them to clear up the mess. France, the battle ground of the first and second world war, was given compensation and was paid for its losses; where was the West when all was said and done in Afganistan.
Now, whether you think the West has a responsibility or not, I am merely illustrating the point that this story has a lot more pain and history and complexity than your opinion has given it credit.
'We have to remember every day that these people had dreams, a favorite band and ambitions in life. Those things were taken away from them for no reason.'
YOUR quote. Why don't you use it for the Afghans dying now, and those who have already died, and have been dying. THey have dreams too, you know. Oh, I forgot. You live in a life immersed in double-standards. Do you need another catastrophe to wake you up?
Yes, I agree with the bombings, but it deserves a more careful approach. Yes, I agree with action; but I also believe in a little bit of respect for human life, whether American of Afghan. You could try to show a bit of respect yourself.
Ant.
