ANOTHER OUTRAGE ANOTHER APOLOGY

LANKAWEB

Another Outrage – Another Apology
Posted on May 2nd, 2012

Hameed Abdul Karim

Leon Panetta had to face the cameras yet again to issue yet another of his recycled apology when Obama’s warriors were caught once again with yet another outrage in Afghanistan. This time personnel of the 82^nd airborne division were featured posing with the mangled remains of dead Afghans. But guess what? There was no ‘shock and awe’. It seems like the world has been anesthetized with the empire’s massive propaganda machinery that has worked round the clock to dehumanise its victims. Like the empire’s previous victims in Vietnam or Korea or Kampuchea or the many Latin American countries, the killing of Afghans or for that matter the Pakistani’s, Palestinians or the Iraqi’s cause no revulsions in the world. It seems they were destined to die, as deserving victims, at Obama’s hands like as if in accordance with some macabre scriptural prophecy.

The soldier (anonymous?) who provided the photos to The Los Angeles Times said he was doing so as proof of the ‘lack of discipline, leadership and security’ among Obama’s warriors and that he felt such a sad state of affairs might jeopardise the lives of his compatriots in Afghanistan and probably in other places where the poor Americans were laying down their lives in order to civilise the savages.  That was the ambit of his concern, not the needless loss of life of the hapless people the empire wants to civilise.

The editor of The Los Angeles Times happens to be of Asian origin if we are to go by his name, Davan Maharaj. He said he had held the photos back for 72 hours giving Obama’s regime sufficient time to lay the ground for damage control. This suggests the ‘rogue’ soldier knew where to go to get his job done. Supposing he had taken the photos to the ‘mainscream’ media like for example The New York Times or CNN, would they have carried them?  Mind you the LAT published only two of the 18 photos. You can only imagine the horror depicted in the balance 16.

According to reports the Pentagon had tried to suppress the publication of these two photos and when they actually appeared Pentagon and White House officials had expressed their ‘disappointment’ that the photos had been made public and that they feared a backlash against U.S. forces. Their ‘fear’ was only confined to ‘backlash’. Once again we notice a callous disregard for the loss of non-White lives.

George Galloway, once again a member of the British parliament, when asked if he supported Britain’s ‘mission’ in Afghanistan said he believed it was not a ‘mission’ but a war followed by an occupation. It’s not every day we get a frank opinion like that from politicians in the West.

So when Secretary of State Leon Panetta, with his usual poker face, apologised for the latest U.S. outrage in Afghanistan to no one in particular, it was hard not to notice the racist underlining in his attitude. It’s only when U.S or NATO soldiers die in battle we see solemn faces amidst elaborate military funeral arrangements on TV channels like CNN and other Western news outlets, but when Afghan civilians or Mujahedeen fighters are killed there’s hardly any mention of the dead. Only numbers – like a scorecard in a baseball game.

There was hardly any remorse in Panetta’s apology. The dead bodies that were abused and the numerous civilians who die every day at the hands of Obama’s warriors are not White people and so there is hardly any point in putting too much of an emphasis on their deaths, ‘deserving victims’ that they are.  Casually dismissing the latest outrage Panetta harping, once again on the ‘core value’ stuff and nonsense, said the behaviour of U.S. soldiers depicted in the photos ‘absolutely violates both our regulations and, more importantly, our core values. This is not who we are….’ Well, an overwhelming majority in the world doesn’t buy that story, so tell it to the marines, sir.