As we celebrate our nation's independence from tyranny 231 years ago, let us not forget that others suffer.At Safeway again last night, I saw the walking wounded from America's 'War on Terrorism'--young men and women missing hands, legs, eyes. Shrapnel wounds that have left ugly scars and pock marks in their young bodies. And who knows the depth of their psychological trauma.
And for every one of our soldiers who needlessly dies in Iraq, there are scores of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq who are dead, dying, or wounded. What a waste.
Photo caption: An Afghan boy cries after learning two of his uncles were killed during a raid east of Kabul. (June 29, 2007)
Photo copyright: The Associated Press, Rahmat Gul.
6 comments:
I absolutely love this post. You are amazing.
That photo tears me apart.
This kind of photographic journalism is what should be on the front page of newspapers every day until somebody with one brain cell in the white house stops this madness.
Once, in the Rocky Mountain News last year, there was a picture of somebody actually bleeding in an Iraqi stairwell right on the front page. People wrote outraged letters to the editor preaching how inappropriate it was to show that side of the war. How unpatriotic. How dare they.
People like to eat their dinners with a sound conscience, I guess.
-phoebe
SML: Thank you.
Phoebe: It tore me apart, too, and I couldn't not post it here.
This 'war' is so sanitized and cosmetic in its presentation, I think we only know a sliver of the horror and carnage. It is images like these and the sight of young men and women like those I see around the neighborhood that make me angry.
Amen, sister.
Good post, my friend. There are no easy solutions to what is happening in the world right now, and bearing that in mind, war should be the LAST solution, especially in an age where we are capable of destroying each other in such 'sophisticated' ways. Our desire and quest for peace should be equally as sophisticated.
Sad :-(
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