I can imagine the Afghans in Kabul saying:‘Get a small taste of your drones’ ,
as they look at the images of the Boston bombings on television. In
their minds, the marathon maybe the equivalent of the Afghan wedding
celebrations that gets bombed, the perpetrators were targeting American
terrorists hiding among civilians thus inflicted collateral damage. If
you want to know how others feel, put yourself in their shoes is the
proverb. It is amusing to see the frenzied Americans pouncing on anyone
who remotely looks like an Arab or a Muslim as a suspect. A Saudi
national was already identified by the media mob, who in reality turned
to be one of the victims; the lessons of Oslo and Oklahoma have already
become distant memories.
You hear the media scream “innocent civilians”! The crusader brigades
led by the likes of Mr Erik Rush at Fox News have already pronounced the
contradictory edict: “Muslims are evil, kill them all”. Isn’t the act
of killing everyone, which would include women and children, the
epitome of evil? If Mr Erik Rush was intelligent enough to prod, he
would see that many fellow conservatives around Fox News privately view
him with a level of disdain, due to his mixed racial heritage; but
coolies are useful as colonial British found out in India. His tweeter
feeds are full of expletives, a male version of Pam Geller, spewing out
hate and zero content; this reflects the crass nature of the American
conservatives wrapped up in ignorance.
If the outrage is caused by the innocence of civilians, then lets us
be frank and ask: “are the American civilians genuinely innocent or are
they collateral damage like the Afghans?” If it is the latter then there
is no grounds to register any complaints; otherwise, one has to compare
their innocence with the innocence of Afghan civilians. And unlike the
elected drone-killer, Obama, the Afghans did not elect the Taliban, nor
did they invite the Americans. It is only fair to hold the civilians
complicit, in relation to their role of electing and authorising the
actions of their respected governments. No contest here, the Americans
being a democracy wins! They continue to elect leaders and permit them
to pursue illegal wars, extra-judicial killings, and victims often
include women and children; surely the American civilians should
understand and expect that there will be similar retaliation in kind.