Afghanistan pictures show the brutality of military occupation

The Los Angeles Times printed a story and photos about soldiers posing for pictures of parts of dead suicide bombers in Afghanistan. Many right-wing pundits and loud mouths throughout the country are condemning the newspaper for printing the photos and running the story.

Many would have us believe that this will cause more unnecessary casualties. In fact all the casualties in that country have been unnecessary since the US went in there. Many people opposed the photos, others the article itself. Some on opinions lines have accuse the mainstream (left-wing according to them) press as being traitors and committing treason.
But this is what is really going on and it needs to be published. People need to realize there is no “clean war.” People refer to the Taliban and other opposition as “terrorists.” In fact this is an empire that did not go in to help those poor people, building roads, schools and hospitals. The US went in to complete global domination of the Middle-east where resources are plentiful. The people there have fewer cars than the US, they live in housed often made of mud or a combination mud-brick. They don’t show a lot of suburbs or white picket fences in that country. They don’t show great shopping malls.

Yet journalists are being told our soldiers are keeping us free to print what we want. That is pure bull-shit. When a war goes on this long, the brutality seeps in and all soldiers on all side start to take out their frustration on local people in various ways. Recently soldiers pissed on the enemy dead. They burned extra Korans without thinking how that would look to the locals and now this. And that’s just this war. Let’s not forget Abu Ghraib, in Iraq.

Constantly being at war makes a society brutal and that starts with the troops. The war demoralizes them. They get restless and angry that they are not yet welcome by the whole of the population and they are presently taking it out on the dead.

I think it is important that all people see the reality of this war, so let’s spread these pictures far and wide.

-សតិវ អតុ