[Mb-civic] MUST READ: Making enemies in Pakistan - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

  Making enemies in Pakistan

By Derrick Z. Jackson  |  January 21, 2006  |  The Boston Globe

PAKISTANI OFFICIALS say three or four top Al Qaeda operatives died in 
the US airstrike in Pakistan. The reported 13 civilians killed in the 
attack faded behind America's arrogant contrition. Republican Senator 
John McCain of Arizona on Thursday told MSNBC, ''I understand how this 
would upset the Pakistanis, and we regret it. And obviously, we should 
do whatever we can to compensate the families of the innocent people who 
were killed. But for us to say that Al Qaeda has sanctuary any place in 
the world would put us at a significant disadvantage. Again it's a tough 
situation. But if we don't take these guys out when we have the chance . 
. . "

President Bush has yet to comment on the 13 civilians, which included 
women and children. White House press secretary Scott McClellan turned 
the deaths upside down, saying, ''We are engaged in a war on terrorism 
against a deadly and determined enemy, an enemy that continues to target 
innocent civilians. In this war, we go out of our way to target the 
enemy, to target the terrorists, those who want to do harm to innocent 
civilians in Pakistan, in that region, in the United States. We work 
very hard to minimize the loss of civilians. And we go out of our way to 
minimize civilian loss."

Let us assume that we got some of the key commanders and weapons experts 
in Al Qaeda. The incident remains bloody proof that we are repeating the 
Vietnam mistake of destroying villages to save them. If the current 
reports hold up, we still killed three times more civilians than 
terrorists in the attack, a ratio we would not accept from our local 
police, no matter how desperate we are to curb youth violence or 
organized crime. That is a gruesome parallel to conservative estimates 
that American forces killed at least three times as many innocent 
civilians in invading and occupying Iraq than were killed on our shores 
on Sept. 11, 2001.

For all the real dangers that foreign terrorism poses, we will not win 
the hearts of the world and secure global peace by following the 
mentality of William Westmoreland. The late American commander in 
Vietnam famously dehumanized civilian slaughter in our 10-to-1 kill 
ratio of enemy soldiers by saying, ''The Oriental doesn't put the same 
high price on life as does a Westerner . . . life is cheap in the Orient."

Kill ratio is not the only way we declare life cheap in the rest of the 
world. It was curious that McCain talked about compensating families of 
innocent victims in Pakistan. We have barely done that in Iraq.

According to a 2004 report by Newsday, the US military had given out an 
average of $393 to Iraqi families whose loved ones were killed or maimed 
by our bombs and bullets. Later an award-winning feature by the Dayton 
Daily News found contradictory evidence of American restitution to Iraqi 
civilians.

While the Army claimed that 79 percent of 14,000 claims were paid, the 
Daily News found through the Freedom of Information Act that only about 
25 percent of cases in the Army database resulted in a payment. Prior to 
that, Newsday had reported that the military denied compensation in a 
little over half the cases.

Contrast that to the Sept. 11 Victims Compensation Fund. It gave out an 
average of $2.1 million to families of 2,880 people who were killed and 
an average of $400,000 to the 2,680 people who were injured. Contrast 
that to what happens when cities are forced to compensate for mistakes 
by the police.

Boston made a $5 million settlement with the family of Victoria 
Snelgrove, the woman who was killed by a pepper pellet during a rowdy 
Red Sox victory celebration. New York City made a $3 million settlement 
with the family of Amadou Diallo, who was hit with 41 bullets when 
police mistook his wallet for a gun. Riverside, Calif., made a $3 
million settlement with the family of Tyisha Miller, who was hit in her 
car with 12 of 24 shots, accompanied by racist comments.

On Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney spoke in New York, again mixing 
9/11 with Saddam Hussein and his nonexistent weapons of mass 
destruction. Cheney said again that we face ''a loose network of 
committed fanatics . . . enemies who hate us, who hate our country, who 
hate the liberties for which we stand." His response is fanatical acts 
of needlessly invading countries and destroying a village to kill a 
terrorist.

Soon, it will not be just our enemies who hate us.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/21/making_enemies_in_pakistan/
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