What is happening in Afghanistan?
The recent news from the Afghanistan front is disturbing. First I heard that a military helicopter got shot down somewhere in the mountains, killing 16 US soldiers. In describing it as the ‘worst single day death toll for US forces in Afghanistan’, it was casually mentioned that the helicopter was on its way to rescue some special forces. Rescue special forces? What happened? How many were they? There were no clear answers. Later it is reported that the WHOLE special forces is missing! Nobody, except possibly the family of those missing, appears to care about this. As for the public in USA, Afghanistan is a closed chapter with democracy thriving there under President Karzai. Few know that outside a small area surrounding the city of Kabul, it is total anarchy there with Taliban dominating (remember Taliban, who hosted Osama Bin Laden?) I expect more bad news from Afghanistan, although they will be drowned out by the calamities in Iraq!
posted by PJ @ 4:22 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The apparent indifference of the American population to the casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq is not surprising. Even during the Vietnam war, the majority of Americans through much of that war was supportive of Johnson and then Nixon. They came to be known as the "silent majority". The resistance to that war was primarily occasioned by the draft. Young men and women who were to be drafted - and their families - were at the forefront of the protest movement. If the draft were restored in the US, you would see a whole different mindset developing among those who are impacted.
The Bush administration has learned from the Vietnam experience. Why do you think the coffins of dead soldiers are not allowed to be filmed by the media? Why do you think there is no high level representation by members of the administration at funerals? Why is Bush never shown meeting with the bereaved members of the families of the dead soldiers? It is all a concerted strategy to keep the war and its impact below the radar. For the most part, it has worked - at least so far.
During the Vietnam war, the American people were persuaded that the war was a fight against the spread of Communism and that US national security was at stake. Remember the slogan from the fifties, "better dead than red"? This go around, the American people are convinced that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against terrorism and not to engage in this war would ensure a repeat of 9/11. In both instances, the resolution to go to war was passed by Congress based on a false premise - in the case of Vietnam it was the alleged attack by the Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin and in the instance of Iraq, it was WMD.
The media and Congress have both been unwitting collaborators in this charade.
Interesting comments by Anonymous. I agree with most of them. I was a young ‘foreigner’ in this country during the Vietnam War. I often felt that the protesters were mainly concerned about ‘saving their asses or of their loved ones’. They did not care much about the suffering of the Vietnamese. “Make love, not war”, meant let us enjoy ourselves without getting killed! – Nothing more. As for the Bush administration getting away by keeping the human toll of the war under the rug, I feel that the gutless Democrats and the news media are to blame for it. They are scared about being branded unpatriotic or weak if they protest any actions camouflaged as ‘war or terror’. Why can’t the Democratic Senators or Congressmen meet the war dead on arrival at the airport, and attend their funerals? It will automatically become a news story, which will not be ignored.
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