Western citizens continue to be bombarded by information on the human rights violations of American troops in Afghanistan. The most recent cases being the Koran burning incident and the killing of 16 Afghan citizens by a "rogue" U.S. soldier.
While America nervously awaits the fallout each time a few U.S. troops go so-called rogue, our enemies benefit through our biased and obsessive media reporting against our own troops while under-reporting the barbaric nature and threat of our enemies – all of which only serves to weaken Western resolve.
Starting with the accidental Quran burning incident at Bagram airbase that resulted in widespread rioting, dozens of Afghan citizens and six Americans including two U.S. troops were killed, President Barack Obama apologized; the troops were reprimanded, then forced into sensitivity training where they were advised never to touch the Koran, to place anything on top of one, to keep the Quran off the floor and in bathrooms, and never to "talk badly" about it. Members of Parliament in Afghanistan called on Afghans to take up arms against the American military while the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, rounded up a panel of mullahs and other senior religious figures to investigate, then jumped on the incident as a means to gain an upperhand in negotiations with the U.S. He stated that the Afghan Government should take over American-run detention centers. As it was, the U.S. and Afghanistan just signed a deal on the transfer of the Bagram detention center in hopes of achieving a long term partnership with America in that country.
Then came news that Western forces shot 16 civilians dead in Afghanistan including nine children in south Kandahar province, in a rampage. While the Taliban vowed revenge against the U.S.— referring to the "American savages" and calling for Americans to get out of Afghanistan, Obama issued a statement to reporters at the White House, apologizing and calling for justice for the crime against the Afghans. He appealed for a full investigation by the Pentagon and warned that whoever was responsible would be held accountable to the full extent of the law. While the Army has not yet brought forth any charges, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said prosecutors could seek the death penalty.
The invasion of Afghanistan by American troops following the 9-11 terrorist attacks was to achieve the goal of dismantling the al-Qaeda network based in that country. Since then, U.S. troops have been under microscopic scrutiny by many media outlets, and subsequent unbalanced reporting when incidents involving charges of violations take place, but with appalling blindness in often failing reporting the cruelties inflicted by al-Qaeda, not only upon their own innocent civilians but on U.S. troops as well. While acts of cruelty and violations against the Afghan people by any of our Western troops should never be condoned, the unscrupulousness of the one-sided approach to reporting needs to be highlighted, as well as the impact this has on our case for democracy and on troop morale; not to mention the unsupportive, one-sided approach their own Commander-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, has to the "crimes" of his own troops.
A U.N. report released in March 2011 indicated that in the Afghanistan war, 75 percent of deaths were from Taliban and local insurgents, not coalition forces. In fact the U.N. indicated that 2,777 civilians were killed in 2010. The U.N. report also pointed out that American Aid Workers trying to help the Afghan people were targeted by Taliban forces.
A document released by the Defense Department provided a clear picture of the enemies that our troops face in this war. Al Qaeda images and cartoons on how to torture a captive were revealed in which meat cleavers, blow torches and electric drills were used to torture and force information out of their victims. Yet, the public relations lynching against our troops continues with the under-reporting of the facts about our enemies. Eyewitness testimony before American troops arrived in Afghanistan, describe people packed into containers then suffocated in searing midday heat; hospital patients murdered in their beds, throats slit in front of family members; butchery, rapes, the frenzied firing of machine guns on innocents, leaving bodies littering the streets. Another report described the torture and murder of a pregnant woman, and the nose and ears of another woman chopped off by her husband for allegedly dishonoring him.
These examples represent a fraction of incidents, and reveal but a glimpse of the environment the troops face, further outlined in a Department of State file. Such conditions most probably have an incalculable psychological effect on our troops who witness such savagery, especially when the incidence of military suicides are a concern.
The chant of our enemies is that America is evil, capitalism is evil, America is arrogant, America is an oppressor, America is the Colonialist --- the great Satan, while Israel is the little Satan, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu recently remarked when he described America and Israel. Yet such narratives do not exclusively emanate from Islamic regimes; much of it is articulated by national ideologues who hold America and the West to the uppermost standards of morality but who seem not hold even the lowest standards for our enemies. The question "Why" has been attributed by some to "white guilt", yet there is a paradox to this: ironically, to attribute negligible standards of morality to a foreign society is the ultimate form of self-superiority and arrogance. It implies that the victims matter so little that we accept violations of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the question of judging the brutishness of the rulers, their morbid atrocities against their women and children are of little concern and consequence. A convoy of 41 young children that was headed for a suicide bombing training facility in Pakistan from Afghanistan was recently apprehended. Apparently the children's parents were lied to by the smugglers, who told them their children were being carried to religious schools for education. Even though this incident was reported, it was hardly emphasized.
America is at war with forces that seek conquest -- both physically and ideologically -- and are willing to use any means to do so. The global fight for homeland security and Western democratic freedoms is being undermined from within through obsessive, unbalanced and graphic reporting: it demonizes U.S. troops and culture, and indoctrinates Western populations into self-scorn, while perpetuating a dreamy unawareness about the enemies we face.
