messja
03.04.03, 15:27
Tak wiem, to watek o wojnie i niezbyt pasuje na to forum. Cytaty pewno sa
zbyt dlugie i w dodatku w j. angielskim, ktory nie musi byc dla wszystkich
zrozumialy (ale jesli znajda sie osoby, ktore zechca bym je przetlumaczyla,
to chetnie to zrobie, poki co podaje tylko orginalna wersje, ze wzgledu na
czas, jaki tlumacznie by mi zabralo. wszystkich, zainteresowanych poki co
przepraszam).
pewno wielu osobom wyda sie to nudne, ale ewntualne komentarze tego typu
uprzedzam: jest wiele innych watkow, jesli uznacie, ze to was nie obchodzi,
czy nie dotyczy, nie musicie czytac...
dlatego tez lojalnie uprzedzam w tytule o czym watek traktuje.
dlaczego wiec, spodziewajac sie takich reakcji postanowilam te cytaty tutaj
umiescic.
bo mnie poruszyly, bo nie sposob jest mi udawac, ze to mnie nie obchodzi, bo
na takie tekst natrafiam codzien, przegladajc prase... i podbnie jak w
autorce artykulu ponizej, budzi sie we mnie gniew i smutek...
“Metro” Wednesday, April2, 2003
Soldiers buried a baby (...) after finding her dead in the middle of a road.
Her tiny, mangled corpse was discovered by a US tank unit. (…). The baby was
six or seven weeks old. Her head was crushed but her torso was intact.
(…)”You would have thought she was a doll, until you got closer.”
Seven Iraqi women and children shot dead by US soldiers at a checkpoint were
fleeing from Saddam’s regime, it emerged yesterday. They apparently thought
they were approaching an Iraqi barrier and opted to drive straight through.
Instead, their car was showered with bullets by nervous Allied soldiers
manning a roadblock near Najaf. A US reporter who witnessed the attack said
troops failed to fire a warning shot to signal to the occupants of the van
that they risked being shelled.
(…) Capt Ronny Johnson repeatedly ordered a warning shot to be fired. “Stop
(messing) around!” he yelled into his radio when he saw no action being
taken. Finally, he shouted: ”Stop him, Red One, stop him!” After the fatal
shots were fired, Capt Johnson roared at his platoon leader:”You’ve just
f*****g killed a family because you didn’t fire a warning shot soon enough”.
In the other attacks yesterday, nine children were reportedly killed when
coalition aircraft fired on Iraqi positions (…). Among the dead was a family
of 11, including six children.
(powyżej artykułu zdjęcie na polowe strony przedstawiajace mezczyzne
wykrzywionego w rozpaczy po utracie 11 członków swojej rodziny).
Information minister Mohammed Saeed al.-Sahaf also claimed US pilots attacked
two buses bringing American and European peace activists to Baghdad from
neighbouring Jordan.
“these were human shields coming to Baghdad to be deployed,” he added. “Many
of them were injured and taken to hospital at Rutba. The brave Americans
start shooting Americans.”
“Evening Standard” 2April 2003
Allison Pearson
“Let us stop pretending we can have a Nice War”
We are fighting a Nice War. The first Nice War in history. A war with a bad
conscience. A war that doesn’t want to hurt people’s feelings. A Scouse
corporal – he can’t be more than 19 0r 20 – shepherds a flock of Iraqi women
and children away from a smocking town. “they can’t bet hit,” explains the
soldiers, panting anxiously, “it would be catastrophic.”
That’s obviously what they have been told, the corporal and his mates. Do
your job, but try not to kill anyone.
I look at the young soldier and what do I feel? Pride that he was born and
grew up in our country and that he seems so capable and mature, eager to do
the right thing. I love the fact that, thought small, our army is brilliant
trained and, unlike the lumbering Americans machine, can think on its feet
and make daring raids. But I feel furious also, angry that we have put
soldier and his comrades in the position of having to fight a Nice War.
War isn’t nice, war is bloody terrible, and you’d better have a good reason
to have one. If I were that corporal’s mother; I would punch a hole in the TV
screen and try to grab him out of the Nice War. How did we find ourselves in
the impossible position of fighting a polite, after-you-Miss kind of conflict?
Because the coalition went to war without the support of other major
countries, before most people were convinced that a war was what we had to
have, and now, to minimize international criticism, they have to tread
softly, softly.
Oops, blew up three civilians! Frightfully sorry about that. But it’s a war,
I feel like screaming. Either we’re having a peace. You can’t have both
simultaneously.
(…)
What we ses every day, every hour in Iraq is proof that a pre-emtive war is a
bad idea. We can all rally round, even the peaceniks, if there’s an immediate
threat to our homeland, or an invasion like that of Kuwait. But now, every
time a young man or woman loses their life, I ask, “What for?”
That corporal who planted daffodil bulbs to surprise his wife before he went
away/ Dead.
Because some day in the future some madman in land far away might conceivably
sell some chemicals to someone who wants to hurt us.
Howard Johnson, a US private, was killed last week in an ambush. “I don’t
feel it was necessary,” his mother said devastingly.
