Moral values again

[pegkerr]

This picture has been haunting me all day [warning: there is real blood involved]. This little girl's face, her terror and wild sorrow, has been tormenting me all day. She is a little younger than my girls, and her whole world has been destroyed. By us, by our proud American representatives who have gone to Iraq to spread peace and liberty, according to the man that the press assures us we voted in because he represents the kind of moral values we American supposedly want.

I look at that picture, and I feel a visceral revulsion for our role, for my role as an American in that little girl's tragedy. I want to help her, to soothe her, to comfort her, to take her in my arms and wipe the bloodstains away, wipe away the horrible image of her dead parents that has been seared forever in her memory. Yet if I stood before her now, I don't think I could even look her in the eye. I think I would die of shame. How can they be moral values if I feel such scalding, despairing shame?

And I feel a seething rage, that we are being led by an Administration whose policies and pronouncements and goals and arrogance has led to this. I want to protest to that little girl, I didn't do it, it's not my fault, but I feel the full weight of that responsibility, that blood upon my head. And what particularly makes me furious is that our President, apparently, does not.

Oh, child, I am so desperately sorry. I don't know if you will ever come to a point in your life when you can understand or believe it, but I will tell you this and hope that you will accept someday that there is a woman halfway around the world tonight who saw your pain and wept as hard as you, and said, Oh, God, I am so desperately sorry. Please forgive us.

Please forgive me.

Comments

[knitmeapony.livejournal.com]

I saw that picture of the first time the other day. It made me cry.

I had to walk away.

[lkw18.livejournal.com]

I have seen other pictures like that and each time I do it depresses me incredibly and I think "We are fucking up these people's lives for what.....? For careless information. For a war-happy President. For oil."

And this is what people voted for in terms of "moral values".

Please.

Pro-life? Yeah, it doesn't look like it to me. We can kill Iraqi children but an American woman having an abortion displeases morality. Hypocrisy abounds!

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I loved the bit on Monday's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which showed an anti-abortion rally in D.C. outside the White House. President Bush telephoned the rally to voice his support for their cause. At a rally that was outside the White House.

As Stewart said, it's nice to see that our President has the moral conviction to, literally, phone it in.

[charlietudor.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone could have phrased this better.

[airemay.livejournal.com]

:( I don't understand what good we are doing in Iraq, especially when I see pictures like that.

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

The photo reminds of one of a Chinese child from during World War 2 (I believe it was taken during the Japanese bombing of Nan King).

As what to do, well... I don't think asking forgiveness is what we need to do as much as start demanding somethings from our government. Maybe we need to stand up like Mark Dayton and say that we've been lied to.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I don't think I can say what I feel very clearly...

(Please don't think that I'm telling you what you should do - frankly I'm telling _ME_ what I think I should do.)

[ame-chan.livejournal.com]

yes. That's exactly how I felt when I saw those pictures a few days ago. You just said it so much better than I ever could.

Make that two women.

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the photo if the little girl who was napalmed in Viet Nam (http://www.gallerym.com/pixs/photogs/pulitzer/pages/vietnam_napalm.htm).

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I was thinking--both of your sentences.

We do this to the children, then wonder why they grow up to hate us.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

It should be said, though, that amazingly enough the little girl in the Vietnam photo has not grown up to hate anyone, and in fact travels widely as a speaker on reconciliation and conflict resolution.

Sometimes, just sometimes, children somehow have the amazing inner strength to transcend the most terrible things that adults can do to them, and grow up into astonishing people. On children like that, the world depends for its survival.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I wish there was a way to really say that to that child.

K.

[fredcritter.livejournal.com]

I feel the full weight of that responsibility, that blood upon my head. And what particularly makes me furious is that our President, apparently, does not.

Yeah. It's taken a remarkably few years for it to go from "The buck stops here" to "Buck? What buck?"

[zephyrious.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. I'm also frustrated that there was no story to go with the photo when it turned up in my paper. I get the feeling that tragedies like this are far more widespread than we hear or see.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lotuseater/]

I saw a picture like that in the Strib today, accompanied by the same article. I understand that no one means for these things to happen - I'm sure that the soldier who shot that girl's parents felt awful. But things like that do happen, and I feel like the Administration is refusing to admit it. It infuriates me.

[fourleftxaviers.livejournal.com]

Meh. I love this country. But I hate that 50.8% of the people living in it with me are okay with the arrogant, hypocritical leadership that set up the situation that led to all this death. Pro-life culture my ass.

I do love my country, but for the past few years I've been more and more ashamed of it. It's not hard to see why we're hated.