I’ve always found the language that we use to talk about war a bit…suspect.
When killing people becomes “servicing the target,” bombing towns turns into a “surgical strike,” invading a nation becomes a “peacekeeping operation,” and the death of thousands of innocent people is just “collateral damage,” acts that would, in any other context, outrage us somehow become minimized, inevitable, even palatable. As if using a euphemism somehow makes it okay. As if by not actually using the word murder we can pretend it never happened.
But war isn’t inevitable. And even if it was, when a humanitarian aid hospital is bombed, killing both staff and patients (including children), and those responsible get nothing more than a slap on the wrist, you know the system is screwed.
And I know this happened over a week ago, so in the world of news it’s already ancient history, but I really can’t stop thinking about it. I mean the United States military blew up a hospital for Christ’s sake.
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, On Sunday, October 4, international aid service Doctors Without Borders withdrew from the Afghan city of Kunduz after 22 individuals were killed and over 37 were wounded in a US airstrike the previous day that destroyed their hospital.
Of course the Pentagon’s immediate reaction was to release a statement saying that the incident was inadvertent, and that they were targeting insurgents who were in the vicinity of the hospital. Now they’re offering to pay “condolence payments” to the wounded victims and families, as if that will make it better.
Currently Doctors Without Boarders President Joanne Liu is demanding that a never-before-used International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission begin an investigation into the tragedy, to determine whether international humanitarian law has been violated. Unfortunately the United States government needs to consent to the investigation, and so far it has made no indication that it will do so.
At what point do we admit that in this situation, we’re acting more like terrorists than the people we’re fighting?
A recent study from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs showed that, “Approximately 210,000 Afghan, Iraqi, and Pakistani civilians have died violent deaths as a direct result of the wars [in those nations].”
210,000.
That’s a problem.
What’s more, the humanitarian aid organizations that are fighting to combat the damage we’ve done often don’t have enough money to help everyone that needs it.
In 2010 Doctors Without Border raised only $264 million to further their mission of providing health services to underserved areas of the world. By comparison the United States spends nearly $700 billion annually on its defense budget, to further its mission of…bombing hospitals?
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely support American troops, and I think that most of the time they do amazing work. I just also think that the discrepancy shows a clear illustration of where our priorities lie currently, and I think that that needs to change.
So while I don’t have much to give, I plan to show my support for Doctors Without Borders.
And I understand that college kids are poor and most of the time we genuinely don’t have two pennies to rub together, so I’m not trying to guilt anyone into anything, but if anyone’s interested in joining me you can do so here:
