During the horrible (American)
Indian wars in the 1860’s one of the famous (or, more properly, infamous)
Indian fighters was one Colonel John M. Chivington, who believed it was his
duty to kill Indians:
“When it was pointed out to him
that attacking Black Kettle’s peaceful camp would be ‘murder in every sense of
the word,’ Chivington became angry and replied, ‘Damn any man who sympathizes
with Indians. I have come to kill Indians and believe it is right and honorable
to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians.’”
The “any means” included all
Indians, old people, women, children, and even infants as well as warriors, and
it also meant, literally, any means:
“The
people tried to run and hide but the soldiers murdered indiscriminately, men,
women, children, even infants. They pulled little children and women out from
their hiding places in the rocks and killed them all. Eyewitness accounts
indicated that all the bodies were scalped but beyond that they were also
mutilated. Men, women, and children’s genitals were cut out and displayed in
various manners. Some soldiers stretched the women’s genitals over their saddle
horns, others wore them on their hats or carried them around on sticks. Fingers
were cut off and infants were abandoned to die. All of this was apparently done
with the full knowledge of Chivington who had declared previously in a speech
in which he advocated killing and scalping all Indians, including infants, as ‘Nits
make lice!’”
This
was not unusual during the heyday of colonialism. Here is a similar example
from Australia:
“It was commonplace that when a settler was
killed posses would be formed and every Aborigine they came across was
slaughtered, men, women, and children, no exceptions. “Suppose you don’t kill
the pickaninnis, in time they become warriors and kill you. If you kill the
women, no more piccaninnis are born.” (a native policeman, 1857).
Having
no first -hand experience in combat I do not know what atrocities are committed
these days other than the few that occasionally get reported. I suspect it is
true that things may not be not quite as terrible as they once were. I doubt
that modern soldiers actually kill infants by bashing them against rocks,
bayoneting them and such, and perhaps never murder infants at all (except as
collateral damage). However, it seems the Israelis seem never to have been shy
about killing Palestinian children, sometimes even at play (there have been
many reports of this), and if you know the Israelis would like nothing better
than to be rid of the Palestinians (which they have made quite clear) I believe
there may well be a parallel here.
More
to the point here is that according to the Military Times, the U.S. army
now has a policy of killing Afghan children if they are suspected of having
“potential hostile intent.” I think this statement came about as the result of
a recent admission that three young boys had been killed by our military. As
the boys, 8, 10, and 12, were digging in the ground we are being led to believe
this represents hostile intent. Young boys digging in the ground, how unusual!
I don’t know the real particulars of this but I do know that killing children
because they might have potential hostile intent is insanely immoral. Things
change but stay the same, it’s just as disgusting now as it ever was.
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