ABC World News‘ David Muir (9/30/12) took note of the 2,000th U.S. military death in Afghanistan this way:
Overseas now to Afghanistan, and a stark reminder tonight of the human cost of war. An attack at a checkpoint left two Americans dead, one of them a serviceman, the 2,000th U.S. military death since the war began.
That kind of language is revealing in that it presents American deaths as evidence of the “human cost of war.” But, of course, there is a human cost almost every day in most wars. What they’re saying is this is primarily something we should think about when the humans in question are U.S. troops.
We don’t need to search very far to find a counter-example. On the very same show, two weeks earlier (9/16/12) , viewers were told about a NATO airstrike that killed eight Afghan women. They had been out collecting firewood.
How did ABC report these deaths? In all of one sentence, stuffed at the end of a report by correspondent Muhammad Lila about U.S. troop deaths:
And late this evening, another incident that’s causing tension here. NATO is confirming that an air strike has led to civilian casualties, reportedly including Afghan women and children.
Last year, in a very similar incident, a NATO airstrike killed nine boys. And ABC‘s brief report (3/6/11) focused on Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s “harsh words for the U.S.”
Doug Latimer
There is another way in which the deaths of US troops and Afghanis (and Pakistanis and Yemenis and all the other “collateral damage” engendered by empire) are alike, aside from the humanity extinguished.
They would never occur if our government was committed to the actual defense of the country
And not the exploitation of so many others.
sam imbecile
The most successful meme („Ideology“) of all times was perhaps „Jewish culture“, because all other cultures directly or indirectly stem from it: christians, muslims, protestants, capitalists, communists, Marxists, fascists, Nazis, Hollywood cinema, etc. etc. — and no body has understood so far that he is just a slave of this silly 2000year old Jewish tradition, because all “humans” are under the unconscious influence of these “jewish memes” (i.e., political correctness)!
Padre
Uh SI care to tell us what happened to several thousand years of Asian and Indian culture and societies and the lot. They had little to nothing to do with Jewish culture or society, and they are as much a part of our culture as any old, white, European cultures are.
Another ‘trick’ to knowing if people were killed, is the “surgical strikes” and “extreme close accuracies”. That means the people who were killed were ‘ideological combatants’ meaning they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and so are counted as “the necessities of war”.
Glenn
Lt. Calley’s defense for the killings at My Lai was that no one told him the Vietnamese were human.
So easy a mistake to make, Calley was pardoned. Sometimes it is so difficult to look at people and, just by appearances, determine if they are indeed human.
FreeSpirit
The ruling elite would not get away with killing so many little brown (Muslim) people half way across the world if the American people didn’t consider them unpeople. Conversely Israel would not be able to continue with its atrocities (occupation, apartheid, and genocide) if the majority of Jews (not just the Zionist ones) did not approve or turn their face away.
The peace and justice movement in this country has been co-opted by the Democratic party. Where are those hundreds of thousands who were in the streets ten years ago to protest Bush’s wars and atrocities? Obama has done as much if not worse. Where are they now? I guess atrocities are intolerable if they are committed by Republicans. The same can be argued for domestic issues. If Bush had signed the NDAA or bailed out Wall Street to the exclusion of Main Street, we would be hearing about them ad nauseam!
Amanda Porter
Voting for the “lesser of two evils” is still voting for evil like expanding war to Libya, perfecting atom bombs, using drone bombs from a “kill list,” failing to stop tar sands pipeline and encouraging drilling and fracking even though the use of fossil fuels is considered a cause of climate change, in fact, not pursuing any serious methods to prevent climate change. A vote for the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein, or any anti-war candidate is NOT “wasted” but truly ethical under the circumstances.
FreeSpirit
Go Amanda go! Whoever tells Greens or anyone else for that matter that they should vote for the Democratic candidate has contempt for democracy. Funny thing is that it should be us shaming those who continue voting for war criminals and trators to the Constitution of the US. But hubris has it the other way around!
James Dale Barrington -- Dale
Amanda and FreeSpirit, you are so right on. This is the first year I am going Green, although I regret that I didn’t have the nerve three cycles before. It takes awhile for my head and heart to get together sometimes. In other words, to join the ‘outraged group.’ Things won’t line up for us this go around, but maybe 2016 we can scare the hell out of them, — and who knows??? Jill is a savvy lady with enough of fire in the belly to scare the hell out of an opponent if given a fair shot at the prize. Getting an independent on the same stage is the big step, but I believe it will happen — ‘next time.’ — And if that is all we can get for now I’ll take it. — Like your politics….