What are we doing over there?

BY ED FELIEN

Recent public screening of a U. S. Apache helicopter gunship massacre of unarmed civilians in Baghdad in 2007 should convince even the most skeptical that the U. S. attempts to invade and occupy the Middle East are doomed and carry with them tragic consequences. The official video from the gunship is available at www.collateralmurder.com.

On July 12, 2007, two U. S. gunships opened fire and killed 15 civilians. They were afraid the civilians were carrying weapons. They mistook a camera for a rocket launcher. The military said the incident was covered by the rules of engagement and refused to investigate. Two Reuters reporters were among those killed.

Drone attacks on women and children in Pakistan and Afghanistan have taken this war to a new level of horror. Certainly using a passenger jet to blow up an airport or the World Trade Center is a horrible terrorist act, but it seems even more horrible and certainly more cowardly to send unmanned drone missiles into people’s homes because they might be suspected of being sympathetic to Taliban militants.

Who are the Taliban? Aren’t they the young men of the village who are fighting their generation’s foreign invaders, much like their fathers fought the Soviets and their grandfathers fought the British? How can we expect an Afghan village to turn against its young men who are fighting for their village’s independence and dignity? Why should their village support Hamid Karzai, our puppet in Kabul and the corrupt leader of a failed narco-terrorist state?