The Deserving Poor

[vox]

"There's been an earthquake in Afghanistan. Thousands of people homeless, maybe 200 dead, villages flattened. These were people killed, injured, made homeless by a force completely beyond their control, basically an act of God, to use a loaded expression. The international community pours in aid, American newspapers print the story on the front page. This is an appropriate reaction to a horrifying tragedy.

"American bombs fall on Afghanistan. Some 6000 civilians have been killed and who knows how many injured, made homeless, orphaned. These people have had their lives destroyed by a force completely beyond their control. Where's the aid? The bombing has prevented the International Red Cross from doing its work. Where's the front page coverage? Most American newspapers haven't printed body counts except when Americans have died."

Read more (http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0328-02.htm)

vox

[Xvall]

Yep vox.. That's how it always is...
If a terrorist kills a reporter, it's 'bloddy murder' that is covered in the newspaper for months. But if an American bomb incinerated 6,000 people, it's 'worth it to defend freedom'.. Right...

- Drake Dracoli

[Olen W]

Who was it who said, "in war, the first casualty is always the truth?"

-Olen

[Revolution Hero]

US government doesn't even care about Afghans. I don't think that they really want to find Osama bin Laden either. What they have done in Afghanistan is called capturing the influence over territory. They have total control of it now.
Afghanistan would be used as a bridge to further spread of american influence to the countries of NIS.
Afghanistan= new us colony, which means that us will exploit the population of it, making money by investments in it's developing economy et.c.
There is nothing new and I am not surprised of it. Unfortunately USSR's age is over and nobody can resist to US vulture external politic.

[Revolution2002]

Why are you suprised? i think your example wasn't good enough. It doesn't even have to be an unarmed civilian. When an american soldier is killed in a country where i dont know what he's looking for, it's a cold blooded murder by militias. Even if if meant only his plane was shot down. But to bomb the 'Nam-way an entire country, that is legitimate "war on terrorism"

[Olen W]

RH hit it on the head. Afghanistan is being turned into another US colony. We've already worked to get a sympathetic (to us at least) interim government in place, even if that government doesn't accurately represent the Afghan people. How much you wanna bet we maintain a military presence there for a loooong time under the guise of 'protecting us from the threat of terrorism.' The best way to stop terrorism would be for the US government to stop shitting on the rest of the world. Then maybe they wouldn't all hate us so much.

[Hayduke]

America sees afghans like lower people
just like the 'gooks' in vietnam.

[deimos]

They don't care about ossi. They want to build a pipeline from the tengis, the baku and other oilfields through afghanistan and the taliban said noSo they had to be "removed".

[oconner]

This is my opinion, probably wrong.
On 11th of September, understandably, newspapers printed the tragedy and the world went into mourning.
when America started bombing Afganistan, there was very little mention in the papers, and no-one seemed to think it was a bad thing, they seemed to look on it as an act of revenge.
why is this? is it because the people of Afganistan speak or dress differently or because they are a different race? What makes them so different to the victims of September 11th?