Current Affairs Can you Hear the Cry of the Children?

Can you Hear the Cries of the Children?

I was eating dinner at a nice Italian place tonight when I had the unpleasant distinction of being seated next to a rather large fat man. We'd ordered our drinks and appetizer when we realized that the man was talking rather loudly and rather obnoxiously about the war in Iraq. Apparently they ratified their new constitution and were in the process of electing their new ministers who were going to take over the government.

However a few more of our soldiers were killed in yet another rogue bombing. Our boys and girls have been getting killed in that god forsaken desert for a long time now. I am of the opinion that we need to quickly get their government on their feet and get the hell out of there. Enough men and women have died for no reason.

Unfortunately, the fat man next to me held a similar belief. His words went something like this.

"We need to pull all of our boys out of there and bomb them back to kingdom come. A single nuke will set those motherf*ckers straight."

At this point I didn't think too much of his statement. I know several people who believe the same thing. I'd heard it all before, or at least I thought I did.

"We need to kill every last one of them sandn*ggers. Wipe them off the face of the f*cking planet. Men, women and children. If we kill them all now our problems will be solved. Just move right in a take their oil."

One of the men he was sitting with said something that I couldn't hear, but the fat man replied: "Haha! Like Nanking, right? That's how we oughta deal with them. We need to stop pussy-footing around with them."

The a**hole wasn't even trying to keep his voice down. You could hear him across the restaurant. I couldn't believe my ears. Did he really just say that?! Did people that... that evil really exist?!

Nanking is a violent and terrible chapter of Japanese history when Japanese Soldiers, in the few years before WWII, invaded China. The Imperial army captured Shanghai and moved north to Nanking. What followed after the battle of Nanking could not be put into words. Chinese records state that over 300,000 innocent civilians lost their lives during this massacre. Men were executed, beheaded in front of their families. Children as young as five and women as old as 85 were brutally raped. Homes were burned with their families still inside. This walks beside the Holocaust as a terrifying example of how low a human being can take himself.

And that fat, b*stard wished the same thing to happen again in the middle east?! Is this the face of America? Is this what the common layman has become?!

Perhaps he didn't really know what he was speaking about. Perhaps he was just ignorant. That shouldn't excuse such... filthy behavior!

Blind ignorance like that is the exact reason why men, women and children are still dying over there to this day. I can't understand why people choose to be so selfishly ignorant, so self centered and blind.

In high school I had a few classes with this retard by the name of Firas Nasserdine. He was an idiot to be sure. The kind of guy who role played his favorite counter-strike moments before class and watched the WWF religiously.

Once and a while he would stop being a dumbass long enough for me to hold an intelligent conversation with him and some of the things he told me blew my mind.

His family was originally from Lebanon and Palestine in the Middle East, and he had spent a great deal of time in both areas when he was younger. He had a brilliantly blind hatred for the Jews of Israel.

My first reaction was "Wtf, you racist son of a b*tch." To which he raised one end of his uni-brow and met my eyes.

“You haven't been there, have you?" He asked, and I could only shake my head. He only grunted and pointed a finger. That was what people routinely said when he brought it up. They were always people who'd never lost close family members over there to Israeli solders. When he visited them they all lived in a relatively small home and everyone lived together, closely. Mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, aunts and uncles, everyone. As a family they were tighter than any family here in the United States, simply because of how they lived. When one dies, the whole family is devastated by it. Losing an uncle was the same as losing a father. As it turns out a cousin of his and his grandfather were killed in a shoot out between some Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. They found bullets from the Israeli rifles in the bodies. His family had been simply destroyed by the news and were still recovering.

He then asked me if I had ever been in a bombing raid, to which I could only shake my head dumbly. When he was living with his family he told me he was privileged to a front row seat performance of our Tomahawk Cruise missiles. He was forty miles out of the city we were bombing and he said the explosions lit up the skyline like the early dawn sun. The explosions still carried enough force to thunder all the way out to where his family lived. He remembered several sleepless nights listening to the explosions worried that at any moment one might touch down in his own home. The bombings were a result of US action at the request of the Israeli nation.

He told me that if anyone had the right to hate the Jews he did. That until I went through what he and his family did, I wouldn't really ever understand.

That was probably the most intelligent thing he had ever told me. For the rest of the day I didn't say a damn thing to him, I'd been put in my place by a Jew-hater.

Since then I've dwelled upon his words and I can say that I cannot blame him. While I'm not racist, and I don't have any problems with Jewish people or anyone else, I know that if I were in his shoes I too would feel the same way he does. I cannot tell myself that I wouldn't feel that way if I were him without bullsh*tting myself.

 

Ignorance.

That is what's the cause of this filthy war and the reason why so many people are dying for stupid reasons overseas. Both us, the United States and the terrorist factions, are ignorant. I have come to blame us over anyone else in this conflict. We're supposed to know better. We're supposed to be the "Pinnacle of Civilization". We're the God-Dammed United States, the land of the free, the role model for the rest of the world.

Bombs are detonated on American soil, so how do we respond? We bomb the hell outta some obscure middle eastern country. He give a direction to vent our hatred at. As a country we feel better watching bombs detonate over foreign soil. We're getting them back for those who died. Blood for blood.

Out in Country X there are children who don't really care one way or the other about the United States. They're indifferent about us and what we do. They could care less, they have other things to worry about. Suddenly some nut with dynamite blows up a building on the other side of the world and the lives of the children are suddenly turned upside down. Their relative peace and tranquility is shattered as warheads begin to fall from the sky. Every night they lay awake terrified about what's happening? Why are they being bombed? What did they do to deserve this?!

The next morning all they have are more questions. Where is father at? Where is mother at? Where is big brother, big sister? Where are my friend's at? Where is our home at? What happened? Aren't they coming back? Will I ever see them again?

Why?

All of a sudden these children who did not care one way or the other have suddenly lost things that can never be replaced. They are filled with injustice and anger. They didn't do anything do deserve this. Why is momma crying so loudly? Why isn't little brother moving?! Who is responsible for this?

Who do you think the children blame? The one nut job with the dynamite halfway around the world; part the people who claim to be fighting for them and their 'ideals', or the country who’s flag is painted on the nose of all those warheads falling from the heavens?

He grows up, filled with this bitterness and hatred for us because WE killed his family. We destroyed his life. None of our bullsh*t excuses will ever bring them back. 'Bad intelligence', or 'faulty guidance system' won't rebuild the life that was destroyed. He becomes a man and has children of his own who he teaches to hate as well. They in turn hate us simply because that is all they know.

Or perhaps, even more tragically, he dons the bombs himself, and flies halfway around the world to avenge his family, to affirm his faith in Allah, to bring his sadness and pain to those who know nothing about it. In response what do we do?

Fire more missiles in retaliation.

It's an endless cycle. We have planted the seeds of hatred for years to come. Hate breeds hate just as ignorant people breeds ignorant people. This must stop if we are to ever find anything resembling peace ever again. Hatred has evolved to the point where even children are viable soldiers of war.

The fat man at the restaurant is of the same vein. He is ignorant, but he allows his ignorance to fuel his hatred and says things he cannot really understand. Does he not see the images of innocent men, women and children dying overseas. Doesn't he question why we are killing people who are not carrying rifles or packing explosives? Doesn't he feel the least bit of guilt when he turns on the T.V. and see's the man stumbling about the streets holding his dead child in his arms?

His missiles did that.

Our missiles did that.

My missiles did that.

I have been overseas, and we have dropped many, many bombs. Those who I work with have been to Afghanistan, and have seen planes loaded to the brim with explosives come back empty and bare. I blame myself as much as I blame the fat man at the restaurant. I have been a part of the killing. While I was not actually dropping those bombs, I was a little cog in the great machine that killed more innocent people than terrorists. I wasn't even on the front lines. I was safely out at sea in the middle of gulf, out of the range of their weapons, watching them helplessly writhe under our 'righteous and noble' destruction of their lives.

This is why I ask you all this, all those who are comfortable in your warm, quiet homes: When you watch the footage of the war overseas, those videos of bombs lighting up the skyline, can you hear them?

Can you hear the children whimpering in their beds as our bombs fall from the sky? Can you hear them shrieking as their homes collapse on them, horribly mutilating them, leaving their bodies broken beyond hope? Can you hear them crying out in grief and confusion as they realize their fathers, their mothers, their brothers and sisters are never coming back? Can you hear the beautiful nocturne we have created? Its song carries on the whimpers, the screams, and the cries of those whom we are forever changing… Upon their young voices.


If not, perhaps you should turn the volume up, just a bit. Simply close your eyes and listen.


Listen.


I'll simply leave you with this.


~wertitis

 

how can someone say something so horrible like that! the rape of nanking was unhuman. what they did to those people.

it's people like him who should be destroyed.

If they pulled out of Iraq now all of those soilders would have died in vain.

you go in and envade someone elses territory without thinking what would happen to the people currently living there.

innocent victims are the ones who seem to die unnoticed.

 

Its called the human Beast.. We have been At war with each other longer then history remembers...

With to many Ideals in the world the fighting will only continue.. Its only really now After the world wars that People have stopped and taken a look at what happens with fighting.. But slowly the memories of the World Wars fade and people start to fight again.. Look at Israel.. Look what they are doing to the Palestine’s.. Don’t they remember what happened to them in the Holocaust.. I don’t think they do.. Look at the United States.. Look at Bush.. He thinks he was taking out another Hitler.. The crimes that Sadam committed are nothing compared to the deaths of thousands since the war in Iraq started.. Bush only replaced him with a greater evil..

Why do humans behave the way they do.. Because in our own minds we are right and you are wrong.. And some will fight, kill and destroy to prove it..

 

Giving voice to my anger.

~W

 

And THAT is exactly why war will never end. like Like Wertitis said, its because of the children who lost their innocence and have had hate and revenge take its place then they grow up to be ruthless soldiers who care for nothing but revenge and the cycle continues.

I dont know if any of you remember or know about this but last year on Sept. 1 in Russia, a group of Chechen terrorists took a Beslan elementary school hostage for 3 days. they held over 1 000 children plus teachers and parents in an insanely small gym surrounded by explosives with no food, water or any medical treatment. at the end of the 3rd day the explosives went off and special forces stormed the school and a war broke out with the children caught in the crossfire.

I watched a documentary on this on BBC and its possibly one of the saddest and most disturbing things ive seen. the children who were mostly all under the age of 12 shared their stories of death and loss. Hearing a 7 year old girl with pigtails and pink overals talk about how terrorists intentionally shot rocket launchers at thirsty kids trying to drink out of a waterfountain....how she, a 7 year old child, swore to take revenge on them and to kill them all....a little girl...the rest of the children who survived promised the same thing...admitted they had lost their innocence and vowed to take up an AK47 and kill as soon as they had the chance.

People talk about stopping war and making peace but it has to start with the children. they are the future the next generation and if they arent shown peace and love they wont bring it with them to the next generation.

 

What is there to say? War is terrible, yet we know nothing but. Humanity seems destined to destroy itself. So long as innocents lose their lives to vengeance, so long as vengeance is carried out, it will only perpetuate. Yet, not doing so shows weakness, it makes our enemies believe they can repeat it.

It is an endless cycle, yet there seems no way to break out of it. Retaliation brings further retaliation, however, lack of it invites greater assault. So long as hatred exists, we cannot but fight, we cannot but destroy each other. This leads to more hatred.

I am afraid I cannot see a way to end this destructive cycle, that brings only sorrow.

I must say, that was impressively done.