Two Civilians Killed in Afghanistan During Qur’an Protest

A protest in Afghanistan against the shooting of the Qur’an in Iraq turned deadly today when two civilians and a Lithuanian soldier were killed. (Source: CNN) The incident occurred at the Chaghcharan Airfield in Ghor province. The civilians were fired upon by the Afghan National Police after they began throwing rocks and setting tents on fire. However, it is important to note that at no time did they enter the actual compound. Does throwing rocks and setting tents on fire warrant being fired upon? In most countries, riot police would probably have been called in to disperse the crowd with either rubber bullets, tear gas, and water hoses. While the actions of the protesters may have been bordering into that of a mob - the use of live ammunition was clearly inappropriate.

Right wing pundits have argued “Look at those crazy Muslims! They get all riled up when the Qur’an gets shot up! Look at how irrational and inhumane they are! WE are rational, WE don’t care when OUR books get shot up!” They will point to the fact that no Christians responded to the burning of New Testament bibles in Israel as an indication of the “tolerance” of Christianity (ignoring the fact that NOT a single Christian organization even issued a statement at all, thats less of an illustration of tolerance and more of an illustration of apathy. An example of tolerance would be to issue a statement to the effect that condemned the action but recognized that it was acceptable) However, the entire argument that “Western” states aren’t violent like “Muslims” gets debunked if one places everything in its proper context, such as by scrutinizing the number of civilian deaths by insurgents against those committed by the allied forces.

Of course, the deaths of civilians is nothing new in Afghanistan. Since the inception of the war of terror in Afghanistan, civilians have often been the victims of the military attacks by Allied forces. Children, wedding processions (evidence of which was later removed by the US military), mosques, a United Nations mine-sweeping office, the al-Jazeera office in Kabul, and even Afghan police officers have been either bombed or shot to death. The amount of civilian deaths became so widespread that President Karzai went out of his way to condemn it. He did so in October 2006, May 2007, June 2007, and again in April 2008. The situation became so deplorable that in 2007 the number of civilian deaths by the allied forces surpassed those of the insurgents! If the number of deaths by allied forces surpasses that of the insurgents, then the question arises as to whether it truly matters if these people died in a suicide bombing or a carpet bombing - a death is a death. Arguing that the civilian deaths were merely collateral damage isn’t sufficient either. In a number of situations, the attacks on civilians was documented to be intentional murders. However, assuming for the sake of argument that these deaths were collateral damage, when the number of deaths becomes so high that it surpasses those killed by the enemy, this shows a systematic disregard for human life and the weak distinction between intentional and unintentional deaths becomes entirely irrelevant altogether. Pundits will bend over backwards to justify these attacks, but the fact of the matter is that they are heavily biased - they would not dare not give the same level of deference to the opposing side. No one would accept an insurgent apology for civilian deaths or attempt to argue that maybe a suicide bombing was targeting a valid military target and the civilians killed in such an attack were merely “collateral damage.” The disproportionate amount of concern of this sort perfectly illustrates the biased nature of the critique of the actions of the US government in foreign areas. Civilian deaths are civilian deaths and it doesn’t matter if they die by a suicide-bomber or by a ticked off Marine. It doesn’t matter if the other side killed more and we killed less, a death is a death.

So when we hear about civilian deaths in Afghanistan, lets keep in mind that the Afghani government was probably merely imitating its masters.

Global Intifada