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angelikaJ -> RE: Taliban Hangs 7 Year Old Boy -- a story that has gotten very little coverage (6/15/2010 10:20:02 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyEllen
Very sad of course and a tragedy for the family - but this is what war is about, and whether the boy is hanged, shot, blown to pieces, starves or is crushed under a collapsed building is merely something for the statisticians to concern themselves with.
Our western, Hollywoodesque views of sanitised warfare with rules and warcrimes have no place in the reality, and the sooner we all wake up to that and understand what war is, the sooner maybe we might be more reluctant to call for it or support it, as much as we support the troops once the idiots we keep electing have decided on another.
If this instance has made an impression on you, keep it in mind for the next time our glorious leaders start their patter, and name this image war, so you will remember that the old lie truly is the old lie.
E
LadyE,
As someone who grew up listening to the graphic news reports that covered the war in Vietnam, I was pretty well acquainted with the horrors of war before I ever saw the photograph of Kim Phúc shortly after I turned 10. I knew children died. I knew children died in war before my mother had shared with me Dylan Thomas' poem: A Refusal To Mourn The Death By Fire Of A Child In London.
I knew that whatever I imagined, reality had to be much worse.
I posted the story, not so much because it was unique but simply because it had gotten so little coverage and I didn't want it to have happened unnoticed.
I am as familiar with the lyrics of Johnny I hardly knew Ye, as I am with When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
We should not (nor can we) sanitize war.
Innocent people always die even in a "just war".
It isn't something we like to think about but that is not something we should blythely forget whether or not the innocent party is only 7.
edit: spelling
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