Meet John. John a corporal in the U.S. Army. He forms a part of the U.S Marine Corps whose battalion is situated in Iraq. John has been patrolling the streets of Baghdad in search of the remnants of Shia insurgent units. He has weathered remote mines and rockets and seen many of his friends maimed or killed on his missions. Today John will kill three innocent Iraqi civilians. He will see what he thinks is a car bomb and will, as training and experience have shown him, fire upon the unstopping car. Instead of killing an insurgent, his shots will riddle the bodies of a father and his two children.
Shift.
Meet Fareed. Fareed lives in the street of Baghdad with his wife and young son. They have seen the regime of Hussein and the new rule of American soldiers take its place. They have seen missiles destroy their neighborhood and watched insurgents set up strongholds in the ruins. Fareed and his family have tried to keep peaceful lives but Fareed soon joins the ranks of the insurgency to save his family from the oppressors. Today, Fareed will blow himself up at a military checkpoint near his home. His body, strapped with dynamite, will cause an explosion that instantly kills four American soldiers. Shrapnel and flame will permanently injure three others.
Our culture will reward John for his valor in battle. He will be epitomized as one of the many soldiers fighting and dying for our country. John’s actions will be labeled collateral damage, unfortunate deaths in the fight for Iraqi liberation. John will live a hero. Their culture will demonize John, one of the countless infidels who ruthlessly murders innocent civilians.
Fareed will in turn be glorified. His name will live on as one of the few who would fight and die in the holy jihad against the oppressor, and his deed will be used by many more to continue the fight against America. Fareed will die a martyr.
Their stories are completely different. And yet their stories are eerily similar. Both are soldiers. John is a soldier of America, Fareed, a soldier of Allah. Both fought as patriots of their country, their families, their friends. Both used what tools they possessed to work towards what they thought was the greater good. Both are glorified in their countries and demonized with their enemies.
And both fight the war, the perpetual war, that eventually turns all attackers into victims, all destroyers Into destroyed, all killers into slain.
So who is to blame? In this war of words and of weapons, who can we condemn and who can we condone? John fights for America but his deeds killed the innocent. Fareed fights for insurgency but his deeds killed enemy soldiers. Who is right and who is wrong? And more fundamentally, what is right and what is wrong in war?
We fight a war on terror with an enemy unafraid of sacrificing their own to debilitate our soldiers. Yet they too fight a war on terror against an enemy without fear of killing innocent civilians and destroying cities. Can we ever justify what we have done, what we do, and what we will continue to do to protect our own? Can we ever criticize what they have done, what they do, and what they continue to do to protect their own?
We continue to fight end continue to kill. And as we dig ourselves deeper in the trenches of warfare, the line between right and wrong, between just and unjust, between good and evil, continues to erode. And as war encompasses all other things, we find ourselves justifying our actions as the means to and end. But there no end, no war to end wars. We are fighting a war to ensure peace, a war we can never win. Because no is fair, no war is just.