Deconstructing the Good War

Tell it like it is, don't be ashamed,
let your conscience be your guide
Life is too short to have sorrow,
you may be here today and gone tomorrow

--Tell it Like it Is, Archie Campbell

________

Let's play a little game where we look at a news feed, and then say what really happened behind the words. We'll call it deconstructing the news, and if we find it amusing or helpful, we might begin doing it on a semi-regular basis.

We'll start with a short article from the New York Times, that propagandist bastion of liberality, according to Ann Coulter's ilk--"Afghans Say NATO Airstrike Killed at Least 25 Civilians in the South":

"At least 25 civilians, including nine women, three infants and an elderly village mullah, were killed in an airstrike early Friday morning when they were caught in a battle between Taliban and NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, the police chief of Helmand Province said.

"The situation was grimly familiar: the Taliban launched an attack under the cover of darkness and then retreated into the village of Kunjakak in the Grishk district of Helmand. NATO commanders ordered air support, and the result was devastating.

"Lt. Col. Mike Smith, a NATO spokesman, said in a written statement that perhaps 30 Taliban insurgents had been killed in the airstrike, adding that while an unknown number of innocents might have lost their lives, the fault was entirely the enemy’s. “In choosing to conduct such attacks in this location at this time, the risk to civilians was probably deliberate,” Colonel Smith said. “It is this irresponsible action that may have led to casualties.”

[1] An unknown number of innocents might have lost their lives...

No, an unknown number of innocents did die; they were killed. You don't "maybe" lose your life.

[2] "Afghans are not only angry with the Taliban, whose terrorizing tactics include using suicide attacks and concealed roadside bombs, they are also upset by what they see as the sometimes indiscriminate death toll of allied bombs and rockets."

What a mouthful of mush. It says: O.k., the Afghans are mad at a lot of people (=anger management problems; they may just be unlikable people anyway.) It implies they are not discriminating in their judgment calls.

"Upset by what they see as sometimes indiscriminate death toll of allied bombs and rockets"?

This is ridiculous. One is upset when an episode of Lost is postponed.

What this should say is, "They are angry--mad as hell--that our bombs are killing innocent people." They are feeling impotent.

Bombs and rockets are not sentient things. They can not be indiscriminate, for that implies they can also be discriminate. It is we, the bomb-droppers, who are indiscriminate. We are the allies who dropped the bombs, so we must accept culpability for their anger and impotence.

[3] "the risk to civilians was probably deliberate"

The risk of death to civilians became inevitable because of the predictable ham-fisted U.S. response to a provocation which was obviously deliberate.

Imagine the gall of the Taliban to imagine they have the right to fight foreign invaders. Kind of like, "Red dawn of Kabul."

[4] “It is this irresponsible action that may have led to casualties.”

The irresponsible action which led [not, might have led] to the killings was the release of U.S. bombs upon those civilians.


Finally,

“This past week has been very tough,” said Christopher Alexander, the deputy special representative of the U.N. Secretary General in Afghanistan. “I’ve seen the reports. In the Chora attack, the Taliban literally slit the throats of men, women and children and burned the bodies. But there was also close air support that killed civilians,” he said, referring to the NATO airstrike.

Of course, the ones killed by the airstrikes are just as dead as those that had their throats cut by Taliban. And of course, it is always the fault of the nasty Taliban.

And of course, some day all the foreign invaders will leave, and what will be left?

I reckon it'll be called "Taliban."

And tell me one more time, why are we there?

--Jim and Lisa