Pointless "news". No, worse than pointless
The CBS Evening News led with a "story" about Bale's wife, and childhood friends, and all those people who thought he was wonderful and one guy who said lots of people have financial troubles... I'm all for realizing that the Endless War has broken our army, and a lot of our soldiers along with it. But I'm noticing something.
We're spending an awful lot of time talking about him. And not much about the people who were killed. It's part of the whole Othering of the enemy, of course, something we've been doing for a long time to make the Endless War bearable. But it's long past time to just fucking stop it.
Let's remember the sixteen civilians - men, women, and children - who died that night. Maybe a story about their husbands or childhood friends... Or even them.
They had names, too.
The dead:
Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma
Nazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeena
Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid
Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali
The wounded:
Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
Parween
Rafiullah
Zardana
Zulheja
3 Comments:
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At 1:44 AM, March 20, 2012
Anonymous had this to say...
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At 6:21 AM, March 20, 2012
The Ridger, FCD had this to say...
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At 9:35 AM, March 20, 2012
Kathie had this to say...
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<-- Older Post ^ Home Newer Post -->U.S. media hardly mention the widespread belief among Afghans that Bale is simply taking the fall for a whole squad.
That's actually not a crazy belief at all. In some ways, easier to swallow than the one guy sneaking out and managing to do all that, including setting fires...
NPR "Morning Edition" did a report this AM profiling some of the child victims (although only the boys, given Afghan culture).
"Grieving Afghan Father: 'All My Dreams Are Buried'" by Quil Lawrence:
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/20/148974952/afghan-farmer-lost-11-relatives-in-shooting-rampage
Re the female family victims, just this:
"Men from Kandahar don't traditionally talk about their wives or daughters in public, and certainly not to the media. Wazir's daughters were 12, 8, 3 and 2 years old. Their names were Massoma, Farida, Palwasha and Bibya. His 60-year-old mother, Shakarina, also was killed, along with his wife, Zahra.
"'I loved them all like they were parts of my body,' [the husband/father] Wazir says. 'I miss all of them terribly.'"
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