Defeating Moral Equivalence
While I served to protect the principle of free speech, I detest when people choose to follow perceptions rather than reality and attempt to rewrite history. Especially when those people equate the honor and sacrifice displayed by the members of the U.S. military with the evil perpetrated by the Taliban.
To those who cast aside reason in this manner, I ask: What do you stand to gain by taking the position that the U.S. is no worse than the Taliban? And to those who claim that the Taliban are “freedom fighters,” what liberty does the Taliban offer?
The United States stands for liberty. And those who have joined the military must have felt sufficiently motivated by the principles and traditions of this country to do so (I can speak only for myself) – knowing that they are risking their lives. And they do so not only for our interests, but for the entire world – including our enemies. Our humanitarian efforts makes the U.N. look like Uncle Scrooge. Since we are human, that means we aren’t perfect. Every culture has it’s skeletons, and ours is no exception. Over the course of human history, the world has been dominated by one civilization or colonial power after another. But things changed in 1776. The United States stands for liberty, not tyranny. In our wars, we have taken only enough land to bury our dead. The Taliban on the other hand stand for tyranny. And an incredibly barbaric tyranny at that.
The U.S. military doesn’t use human shields, but the Taliban does. And how do you suppose they get children – who are typically scared of the dark, let alone the sights and sounds of battle – to stay or even participate?
The Taliban aren’t the ones building roads, dams, schools, and other infrastructure – our military is. The U.S. military doesn’t threaten, disfigure, and massacre little school girls and threaten their teachers simply for trying to go to school.
The U.S. military doesn’t use land mines (IEDs) – which far more often maim and kill the Taliban’s fellow Afghans than Westerners. George Soros’ phony human rights groups are nowhere to be found when it comes to this issue, and the media could care less (perhaps for the same reason they won’t wear U.S. flags on their lapel). The U.S. military doesn’t prefer to operate amongst civilians, with the express purpose of creating death and destruction, as is the choice of the Taliban. In fact our military limits our rules of engagement to the point that many of our men have died because of the decision. The U.S. military’s prisoners in Gitmo have better medical care than any citizen I have ever met, and their chief concern is weight gain – not beheading and a subsequently-mutilated corpse.
The U.S. military doesn’t produce opium that destroys millions of lives worldwide. The U.S. military treats women with respect, not as a sub-species only useful for sexual purposes. And the U.S. military has never lured in hundreds of women with promises of free health care, only to be raped on video as the Haqqanis did. And when the videos were discovered, the rape victims were tracked down and murdered in order to cover up the atrocity.
The U.S. military coexists with all ideologies – including thousands of non-jihadist Muslims who serve without prejudice (so much so that they promoted an openly-jihadist officer to Major) – while the Taliban seek a global caliphate.
When the U.S. military come across children in need of medical care, they stop at nothing to give them that care, including flying them to hospitals on the other side of the world, at incredible expense. The U.S. military even give medical treatment to captured enemy combatants, side-by-side in the helicopters with the soldiers who they tried to kill just moments ago. The U.S. military follow the laws of warfare, which were there to protect civilians from exactly what the Taliban, al Qaeda, and co. are doing to their own people.
To come to my conclusions, I cite fact. The truth is what it is, and I stand nothing to gain from misrepresenting it. If anyone doubts what I have posted, see for yourself if what I cited is true. It is preposterous to equate the U.S. military with the barbarians in the Taliban.