The U.S. Treats Afghans Like Roaches

[Note that though this commentary focuses on the United States, it is talking about an occupation of which Canadian troops are an integral part -- GSN]

The U.S. Treats Afghans Like Roaches
by Glenn Ford, Black Agenda Radio commentary, July 23, 2008.

To be occupied by foreign soldiers is always a degradation, but some countries are singularly unsuited to lord it over other nations. The United States seems incapable of conforming to the most elemental standards of civilized behavior when occupying Muslim lands. Americans routinely commit horrific atrocities against populations they are legally obligated to protect from harm. Since the beginning of the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, wedding parties have been especially attractive targets of U.S. airpower. "The crimes - mass murder from the air - point up the casually racist nature" of U.S. rule over non-European "others."

The United States has a long history of wiping out wedding parties in Afghanistan and Iraq. The latest atrocity killed 49 guests at a wedding festivity, 39 of them women and children, according to an Afghan government investigation - while the Americans initially insisted that only male "militants" were killed in the bombing raid. This is the usual story. Despite all its smart weapons, the U.S. periodically wipes out most of at least two extended families, gathered for matrimonial celebration in occupied countries. One can only conclude that wedding parties are tempting targets, what with the music playing, the bright and colorful ceremonial clothing, the dancing and singing. What brave American pilot could resist locking on to such an attractive bull's eye?

There could hardly be a less threatening event than a wedding party, which is why it is so important to note every time the Americans blow one up. The crime - mass murder from the air - points up the casually racist nature of the U.S. occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq. These homicides, these acts of depraved indifference to human life, reveal the occupiers' true attitude toward the "native" - that they are like roaches, to be squashed on sight. In the case of the latest wedding party massacre, a high level official in the American-imposed Afghan regime reported that the families had nothing to do with the Taliban. But what if they did? Would it be alright for the Americans to burn and obliterate families whose members are sympathetic to the Taliban? No, that would be a crime against humanity, under international law, yet the U.S. occupiers murder civilians with abandon every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are cloaked in immunity - not by law, because nothing can immunize soldiers against war crimes and crimes against humanity - but by American brute force.

In Baghdad, American soldiers and mercenaries think nothing of shooting their way out of traffic jams that naturally occur in a city larger than Chicago. The penalty for getting too close to an American vehicle as one commutes to and from one's job in Baghdad, is death. And, of course, all deaths at the hands of the Americans are justifiable.

This is the nature of occupation, especially when the occupier comes from a racist country. By official count, hundreds of civilians have been killed in Afghanistan this year - the real number is certainly much higher, since the Americans, to put it bluntly, routinely lie about their crimes. The body count has become an extreme embarrassment to puppet President Hamid Karzai - who is helpless to do anything about it. Meanwhile, the Americans do what they do best: make enemies. They accomplish this without effort because they arrive in the country pre-programmed to treat the natives like vermin. The United States is proud that it makes the "smartest" bombs in the world. Then it behaves like a nation of dumb, racist murderers, and wonders why people hate the name, "America."

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.