I could justify fighting in Afghanistan — until the Boston bombing

[MountainLaurel]

A powerful editorial...

This past week, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly told investigators that he and his brother set off bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in part because of their opposition to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a Marine who fought in Afghanistan in 2008 and 2010, the news made me wonder: Had my war brought the horrors of battle home?

My family’s house is a few blocks from the blast site, where flying shrapnel killed three people and severed many limbs. When a relative told me, his voice brimming with anger, that he wanted to kill those responsible, I couldn’t help feeling that I had somehow failed. My family sounded like any of the Marines I’d met after a comrade stepped on an improvised explosive device: angry, confused, spiteful. War had seeped through my front door, and now my five-foot-tall flower child of a mother wanted revenge served cold.

When the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks happened, I was a 13-year-old boy barely out of my Pokemon phase. I remember that day vividly, as we all do: gigantic pieces of steel dissolving into a sea of ash.

snip

The images of the Boston bombing reminded me of things I saw in southern Helmand province, not the streets where I usually do my Christmas shopping. Many witnesses described the marathon carnage as “a war zone,” and indeed it was: mangled flesh, shocked faces, splattered blood.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-could-justify-fighting-in-afghanistan--until-the-boston-bombing/2013/04/26/e483321c-ad26-11e2-b6fd-ba6f5f26d70e_story.html

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. When the PTB found it unnecessary to seal off the Southern border but invaded an oil-rich nation

which had nothing to do with 9/11, and when the powers-that-be found it unnecessary to diligently inspect the cargo ships and cargo holds of planes flying into this country while otherwise giving free feel-ups at the airports, it is obvious that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are based upon hoaxes.

Who are the winners?

The international super-rich who have no loyalty to this country or to any country. Those who gained even more wealth.

No one is actually fighting in Afghanistan for America, nor has anyone done so, although there are those who have been tricked into believing that. They are fighting for the international super-rich.

[reformist2]

2. It takes courage to say you're for peace after a terrorist bombing.

People will call you a coward, even if you are a Marine. But hopefully the fact that you are a Marine will make them think twice.