is nothing sacred?
is that just an incredibly naive question?
as someone whose life goal has always been to do international humanitarian work - primarily in the health care arena - this just discourages the hell out of me. it's fucking scary.
and of course CARE pulled out... i admire them for staying in there so long; they were, as the article says, one of the few NGOs to stay in iraq after 2 italian aid workers were kidnapped in september.
so what the hell are they kidnapping aid workers for? i understand kidnapping soldiers, contractors, people working for halliburton, etc, though that is also bad, of course. but the responsibility of those kidnappings was claimed by named groups, like al-zarqawi and others, who have a clear objective. horrendeous as those beheadings were, i can understand the motive behind them. but this?
you've got to have a pretty shitty occupation going on for people to try to alienate humanitarian groups who are bringing health care, food and water... especially when they're not even being paid by the occupying government... and are non-profit...
gooooooo bush!
(no really, i mean it. go.)
as someone whose life goal has always been to do international humanitarian work - primarily in the health care arena - this just discourages the hell out of me. it's fucking scary.
The CARE International charity has suspended its operations in Iraq the day after the aid agency's chief of operations was kidnapped in Baghdad.
Margaret Hassan, the head of CARE International operations in Iraq, was taken captive early Tuesday. Her captors have so far given no demands or explanations as to why she was snatched.
and of course CARE pulled out... i admire them for staying in there so long; they were, as the article says, one of the few NGOs to stay in iraq after 2 italian aid workers were kidnapped in september.
so what the hell are they kidnapping aid workers for? i understand kidnapping soldiers, contractors, people working for halliburton, etc, though that is also bad, of course. but the responsibility of those kidnappings was claimed by named groups, like al-zarqawi and others, who have a clear objective. horrendeous as those beheadings were, i can understand the motive behind them. but this?
no clear objective
Margaret Hassan, who holds dual British and Iraqi citizenships, is credited with helping the poorest and neediest Iraqis.
Patients at a Baghdad hospital took to the streets Wednesday in protest of her abduction and credited her with helping to rebuild the medical facility last year.
Her husband said he has not been contacted by the kidnappers, has no idea who abducted his wife, and asked for her release.
you've got to have a pretty shitty occupation going on for people to try to alienate humanitarian groups who are bringing health care, food and water... especially when they're not even being paid by the occupying government... and are non-profit...
gooooooo bush!
(no really, i mean it. go.)
posted by lia at 7:35 PM
3 Comments:
Why are they kidnapping anyone and everyone they can? They're not human. As much as they look like us, and could eventally be taught to be human, they aren't. They're some animal fucking race that lives to fight, not fight to live. They grow up in a state of war, they breed in a state of war, they die in a state of war.
No amount of internet protest emails matter to them, no facts do either; They will fight, even if all their conditions are met, because they know nothing else.
Lorrimer sez:
Thomas, dude, I understand your anger, but thinking of a group of people as "not human" is what gets us into these kinds of messes -- it's certainly not what will get us out of them.
I'm not defending anything here. I'm definitely not defending kidnapping aid workers. But here's the point: the moment we label anyone as "not human" is the moment it becomes morally acceptable to do horrible things to them -- things like what happened in Abu Ghraib, or flying an airplane into a skyscraper, or invading a country pre-emptively and in direct violation of international law.
We are in this mess because our government and the big corporations that exercise too much control over it have not seen people in the rest of the world (not to mention certain groups of Americans) as human, and have therefore exploited, killed, and oppressed human beings, making it harder and harder for anyone to see anyone else who's different as human.
If you look honestly at the day-by-day decisions that were made about the US occupation of Iraq (like disbanding the Iraqi army and giving rebuilding contracts to Halliburton instead of Iraqi companies)(and at many more US policies and actions), you'll see that we've created the conditions for this kind of thing to happen, and we've done that because our leaders just don't see brown people as human beings.
*cheers for lorrimar*
very diplomatically done, my friend. wait... brown people are... human? whaa...?
anyway, i agree with very single thing you said.
and i will add this. war is, by definition, human. it's illogical (as well as dangerous and unjust) to assign an "animal" status to a group of people because they exist in a state of war. you could say they are "uneducated," or "indoctrinated with the culture of poverty," or "pissed the fuck off that there is a large army occupying their country." but animals?
to quote... (10 points for an id on this one) "apes dont read philosophy!" and no, its not that they do and dont understand it, they just dont read it. logic dictates this: "war=human." hopefully it wont always be "human=war" though. we'll see, i guess.
let me also also point out that the US brought the war TO iraq. what does that make the US military?
but logic often doesnt touch anger, or any other strongly felt emotion, and thomas, if you are angry, i do understand that too.
i just needed to stress my point.
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