The U.S. Treats Afghans Like Roaches
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
"The crimes point up the casually racist nature of the
U.S. occupations of both Afghanistan and Iraq."
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.
"The U.S. occupiers murder civilians with abandon every
day in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they are cloaked in immunity."
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.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted
at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
At a time that we need more justice and access to democracy, the Black Misleadership Class is fighting for more prisons and tawdry police reforms under the guise of equity and Black liberation.
Guadeloupe and Martinique are officially French territories, but they are colonized in the truest sense of the word.
A Department of Homeland Security internal document acknowledges that deportations of Haitian asylum seekers are in violation of US law.
Toward the end of his life, Frederick Douglass served briefly as U.S. ambassador to Haiti.
A new archive tells the story of a radical community collective formed in the 1960s to challenge the treatment of Black pupils in UK schools.
