Monday, February 22, 2010

Post #1

These human rights activists are sure annoying. They keep talking on and on about how we should protect human rights across the globe. Obviously, we should. However, protecting these human rights is not the same as complaining about the military and going against its efforts to help the world become a better place.

The recent events with the NATO airstrike are what sparked this rant. NATO attacked a group of mini-buses that were suspected to be an insurgent convoy that was planning on attacking Afghan forces. Unfortunately, the people were not terrorists, but civilians. Thirty three were first said to be killed, but now they claim that twenty seven were. Either way, a handful of innocent people were killed.

This was a tragic incident. The NATO commander apologized about the number of innocent people who were killed and promised to redouble efforts to gain back their trust. Yet, human rights activists still complain loudly. They don’t know what they are talking about. They just want to have something to complain about, and they want to make themselves feel better about themselves, so they choose to go with the popular route and attack the western efforts to help secure the world. They don’t understand that it is very difficult to take care of the situation. Of course, there would be some civilians killed. After all, these are dealings with terrorists. They also don’t realize what would happen if the US and NATO forces retreated. Do they not realize who would be able to come out of hiding? Insurgents would, and it would be a nightmare situation in the Middle East. Human rights would be stomped on without a second thought from these guys. Middle Eastern instability could spiral out of control and would most likely lead to war. Would they be able to keep their human rights during war times? Nope, not at all.

The people that annoy me the most are those that criticize the US’s motives relentlessly. It is very understandable to criticize the US and its motives from time to time. After all, freedom of speech is one of the best things about this nation. Yet, they need to know when it is time to stop. Some people criticize the US’s presence in the Middle East claiming that the US is trying to control these populations. The US is Otherizing these brown people. They are trying to control their lives by enforcing the state upon them and forcing them to become like us. If they don’t become like us, then we will kill them.

This argument is pretty flawed. First, if the US was truly Otherizing and creating cycles of violence, I don’t think that they would just attack buses filled with civilians. Second, I think that the US is trying to keep the peace. We might have different ideas on the details of peace, but unless we do something, there wouldn’t be any peace at all. Just sitting there, criticizing the US day in and day out will not get us anywhere. We need to take action.

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