http://abutamam.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/living-with-ghosts-westerners.html?view=timeslide
“The warm and glassy
eyes of young Iraqi children perpetually haunt me, as they should. The faces of
those I've killed, or at least those whose bodies were close enough to examine,
will never escape my thoughts. My nightmares and daily reflections remind me of
where ISIS comes from and why, exactly, they hate us. That hate, understandable
yet regrettable, will be directed at the West for years and decades to come.
How could it be otherwise?
Again, the scale of
destruction the West has inflicted in the Middle East is absolutely
unimaginable to the vast majority of people living in the developed world. This
point can never be overstated as Westerners consistently and naively ask,
"Why do they hate us?"
In the end, wars,
revolutions and counterrevolutions take place and subsequent generations live
with the results: civilizations, societies, cultures, nations and individuals
survive or perish. That's how history works. In the future, how the West deals
with terrorism will largely depend on whether or not the West continues their
terroristic behavior. The obvious way to prevent future ISIS-style
organizations from forming is to oppose Western militarism in all its dreadful
forms: CIA coups, proxy wars, drone strikes, counterinsurgency campaigns,
economic warfare, etc.
Meanwhile, those of us
who directly participated in the genocidal military campaign in Iraq will live
with the ghosts of war.”
Vince
Emanuele, December 19, 2015
Emanuele speaks with RT’s Anya Parampil about his article and what made him want to inform Americans.
