Swedish Website Wikileaks.org recently revealed a video of the Iraq War in 2007 where an unarmed group of Iraqis were shot in cold blood by the American army. The men were purported to carry hostile weapons, but in fact they were just reporters working for Reuters trying to get their children to a hospital — a tragic case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
America’s foreign policy in the Islamic world on combating the growing instances of terrorism has been in a quagmire for what has seemed to be an eternity. Any efforts made in Iraq to rally the support of the native people are short-lived and as ephemeral as the shifting sands of an hourglass. How can the Iraqi people treat America in good faith when the same people that bring them food from the sky also paradoxically drop bombs on them?
How many deaths can be considered acceptable in wartime provided the civilians are not our own? Are the Iraqi people considered lesser human beings or perhaps mere gnats that are all potential ticking time bombs? Shakespere said in the “Merchant of Venice,” “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”
Indiscriminate killing does not solve any problem, but creates more adversaries. The terrorist acts of 9/11 revealed the despicable side of what a few men are capable of, but the 100,000 civilians killed overseas yields seldom a tear or an iota of concern.
In a recent interview with TPMmuckracker, a Talking Points Memo journalists’ blog, United States General Stanley McChrystal said, “We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force.”
There’s a tradition in Afghanistan to pay the person you wronged an offering of two sheep to seek their forgiveness. America has followed suit with this ritual to repay families who have lost loved ones in collateral damage. But whether two sheep or ten sheep are given, nothing can extinguish the sullen anger of these people who are newly motivated for vengeance.
The graphic photos depicting obscenities of Abu Ghraib prison, the killing of Iraqi journalists working for Reuters and the carpet bombings of civilians in the Middle East only inspire more daring people to fight against America and adopt terrorism. Violence unfortunately can only beget more violence.
If the United States truly wishes to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world to end terrorism, they will have to reconsider the rippling effects of their actions.
There’s a common quote in the Quran, the Islamic Scripture, and Jewish Talmud which says, “Whoever slays a life, slays the world entire. But whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” If we truly want to live in a world where the sanctity of human life is appreciate, it can only happen with mutual cooperation.
If you tickle Osman he is going to laugh uncontrollably, and if you “poke” him on Facebook, he is just going to stare right back at you. Reach him at msalim1@asu.edu
