The Kandahar Rampage shows Our Injustice

When a rogue US soldier [staff sergeant] murdered sixteen people in Afghanistan on Sunday, the first thought that popped into my head was; I wonder how outraged the American people will be? How long will this story trend on Twitter? Will the news outlets run this story insufferably? The Kandahar Rampage [as it is being called] is not an extraordinary event. In fact, it is quite usual. US Soldiers have been known to inexplicably kill civilians. But, this is war--it is expected to have a few loose canons or accidents.  

So, what do we say? The staff sergeant must have had a mental condition and slipped through the psych evaluations. And maybe no other fellow soldiers observed any oddities. But what would be an oddity is this case? We expect a soldier’s vocabulary to include kill and towel head. The incident itself will experience retaliations and more of our soldiers will die [Recently, six US soldiers died in Afghanistan after the burning of the Quran] and the people of Afghanistan will view the United States as evil occupiers more than liberators. This is typical; this is expected, and this is not concerning.

What concerns me is not the actual incident but the response. In general, the American people were not outraged [I figure most did not even hear of the story]. The news outlets did not run the story on a continuous loop. On the contrary, the news outlets barely played the story past Sunday morning. Finally, the story did not trend on twitter compared to the impressive three days or so trend of Joseph Kony [#stopkony].  Which gets me thinking; What if the masses paid attention to Joseph Kony when he was relevant a decade or two ago? There’s evil in the world and most people recognize it. However, sometimes we don’t give a story enough attention because we feel helpless. When there’s an opportunity to make a “difference” we see an outpour of people [look how Joseph Kony blazed through the web]. But when there is not an opportunity or an opportunity that requires a sacrifice, people are mute. 

The Kandahar Rampage will eventually become lost in history. Eventually, a book compiled on the atrocities of the Afghan war may include the incident. The next war will certainly have similar incidents. As we continue to be mute, injustice will continue and the unprincipled will rule. 

This article is not only about making military warfare cleaner. 

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Iraninejad

Atomic bomb deployed by the United States
over Nagasaki

Remember the "Bomb bomb Iran" song?

There’s an abundance of confusion when it comes to word sanctions. Most people just let the word pass by as if it was nothing to be perturbed about. As if one was just saying the word irreguardless. People can’t see the criminality in it. So, when the United States mindlessly throws it [sanctions] out there when discussing countries such as: Iran, Syria, North Korea, most people don’t care. I don’t either to be honest; generally, those countries self-impose their own sanctions via moronic domestic policies. But, back to the U.S.--sanctions are actually an act of war and if you think it is not, then tell me what it is. Sanctions usually aim to put an economic stranglehold on a country, but it is not limited to that. Sanctions can famine other sectors as well. More recently, Iran was hit by a flurry of sanctions from the western world. Although it is not a simple matter, I will treat it as such. Imagine the United States government was the mafia. The mafia will go to local store owners (in this case, Europe) and tell them that if they don’t do business how we tell them to, we’ll break their legs with baseball bats and pull out their nails with tweezers. This is not literal--what I mean is that the U.S. tells Europe (mainly European businesses) to not have any economic involvement with Iran in order to continue business with the United States. Essentially, this is called a bribe and it is no laughing matter. Sanctions do not really effect the leaders or the important players in Iran. The impact is greatly felt by the people. Morally, I would not be able to implement sanctions onto any country--I would try diplomacy, first. However, sanctions are flooding in whether I like it or not and this is all over nuclear endeavors. My thought about Iran’s ambition is that possessing nuclear weapons really makes you a big boy. Although, let’s be honest, who would be so demonic, so unprincipled, so shameless to actually use a nuclear weapon (Oh wait, I just remembered). There is one pattern I see throughout the world; countries that have nuclear weapons don’t get sanctioned. This leaves us with only one advice for Iran. I think you know it. 

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