Afghan soldier

I just checked in for my flight home from Addis. There was an American in line before me and I noticed an Afghan flag on his bag so I mistakenly asked him when he had been there. “June 04 to July 05”, he said. Oh no, he is military. I then found myself at a complete loss for words. My first reaction is to attack him for the atrocities in Afghanistan last week. My second reaction is to ask him his perspective. In the end I say nothing.

I caught the tail end of a preview for a CNN show at 4 am this morning when I was a little sleepy, but I swear I heard them say, “...responds to reports of US troops shooting unarmed civilians in Kabul.” CNN showed the footage of US troops shooting unarmed civilians - I saw it with my own eyes - so why are they now talking about “reports” of murder? The footage showed a US army Hummer driving down a street in Kabul firing off to the side into the crowd. Don't believe the reports that soldiers may have fired over the heads of civilians when they were trapped and surrounded by a rock throwing crowd after a car accident that was caused by break failure. CNN also showed a still photo of this car accident that stared off the whole incident. There were three Hummers in the photo involved in the accident. I also have it from good authority that it was not break failure but rather reckless driving - speeding - that caused the accident (which also explains how three Hummers were in the same accident). CNN told the true story right after the incident but now is playing a different tune. True propaganda.

I am so disappointed in my country: the military, the government, but most of all, the media. If they are lying to the people about this, how many other times have they covered for the US military?

As for the soldier and the many others like him, I don't know how I feel. I know they are generally good people doing service for our country, or maybe less idealistically: poor people who use military service as a way out. I generally just feel sorry for them. They are brainwashed as I suppose they need to be and I know they do not understand the issues. I had lunch with a former British Special Forces officer while I was in Afghanistan a couple of weeks ago. He was asking me about my reasons for being vegetarian. I told him that I cannot disengage my mind to distinguish between the meat on plate and the animal in the field, and so I feel guilty eating meat. He replied that he feels the same way, but he feels no guilt when shooting an enemy combatant. I guess you have to have a supreme level of arrogance and faith that you are in the right to be able to kill another human being in cold blood and believe that you are right.