Americans grieve when their soldiers are killed or wounded.
The military uses the term collateral damage — unintentional damage affecting facilities, equipment and people as a result of military actions directed against enemy forces. The atrocities committed against the citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan and, now, Pakistan, with millions of dead and displaced citizens, are considered collateral damage.
Apologizing and paying for the bombing of weddings, funerals, towns, homes and property doesn’t take away the devastation felt by the victims. Desperate, angry people consider America an enemy. Many have lost children, health, homes, possessions and livestock. Imagine being forced from home with just the clothes on your back or living in a refugee camp with your family — your life destroyed, your hopes and dreams gone. But you’re considered collateral damage by the occupier.
The amount paid to victims or their families in Afghanistan is $2,000 for death and $1,000 for wounded; Iraqis receive $2,500 for death, $1,500 for injury and $500 for property damage. There is little value for the lives devastated by America’s wars.
Americans are considered more valuable than the people of the countries America occupies. Victims of 9/11 received on average of $3.1 million for death, injury, property and suffering.
God created us all equal. Reading Malachi 2:10, “Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?”
Deanne Danforth, Turner