An Apology to Afghan Families from an American Military Wife
SUN MAR 11, 2012 AT 06:49 AM PDT
An Apology to Afghan Families from an American Military Wife
by angelajean
To the families of those civilians who have died at the hands of American soldiers,
I am so very sorry for what my country has done to yours.
In the beginning, as with most beginnings, we thought we were doing what was best for both countries. We thought that by ridding you of the influence of Osama Bin Ladin and his Al Queda brethren, we were making a world safer for your children and for ours. But somewhere along the way, we lost our path. Maybe we never knew our true path in the first place. We trusted our leaders to know it instead and our trust was greatly misplaced.
Our nation is still learning and we had the hubris to believe that we knew how you could best conduct your affairs. We believed that our system of government, that honors freedom of religion, would send military personnel who could see past their own culture and find ways to honor yours. We hoped to share our love of democracy with you and, with it, our own long struggle for civil rights for all our citizens.
It is a battle we are still fighting ourselves in these United States. We are an imperfect country, by far. And we sent imperfect men and women to do an impossible job.
I know many military officers and NCO's and their families and they are good and honorable people. Unfortunately, not all of them are. Whether it is their upbringing or their repeated deployments or something else that has caused them to close off the part of their mind that allows them to accept difference, doesn't really matter. We can find excuses but it won't bring back your family or your friends.
Our inability to train our military service members to wage diplomacy is a battle that our own government needs to face, head on. We have placed an occupying force in a country that was not sure about wanting us in the first place and, after time, regrets the decision more and more. You have learned that enough of our military is at the very least, callous towards your culture, and, at the very worst, hateful. It only takes a little bit of hate to make huge ripples in the pond and a great deal of love to calm things once again. We don't train our military to love and it makes the task of repairing your country impossible. Only those who love your country can make a true difference at the end of the day.
We have attacked from the air, with faceless drones and we have attacked head on. No, that soldier did not act under orders but he was in your country as a delegate of our own. We will place him on trial for his actions but I am not sure that will be enough. I imagine the situation in reverse, your army in our country and one of your soldiers killing unarmed civilians. We would be in revolt. I hope that your people are stronger than our own and will find a path to peace from this horrific action. I am not sure we could do the same in your stead.
I want peace for your country and I am not sure the best way to accomplish it but I do know this. It is not with American Military Forces within your borders. We make more problems than we ourselves can ever solve. The little good we do in those parts of your country where we were once welcome is more than erased by the horrors we cause through our mistakes.
I am sorry. I wish we could do more. And I wish we had done so much less at the same time. I shed tears for all of us and I pray for a better world for our children, those dead and those alive.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/11/1073293/-An-Apology-to-Afghan-Families-from-an-American-Military-Wife?via=siderec
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