Entry # 8: Imagine

This morning my Facebook news feed informed me that the US has bombed a hospital in Afghanistan wounding 37 people and killing 19, including 12 staff of Doctors Without Borders. The bombing was in Kabul, Afghanistan on Saturday, October 3rd at 2:15 am. The US military released a statement confirming the airstrike and saying that they were targeting individuals “who were threatening the force” and that “there may have been collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.”
The hospital treated everyone in the area regardless of political stance or citizenship, a policy that angered the Afghan Security Forces. There is speculation that this might have played a roll in the chosen location of the US attack. Police spokesman, Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, stated that Taliban fighters were using the hospital as a firing position. Which is in complete conflict of the statements of the survivors of the bombing and near by residents. All statements say no fighting took place near the hospital and that the hospital had a strict no weapons policy that everyone followed, even the Taliban, when being treated did not bring weapons into the facility.
The hospital staff called their military contacts as soon as the bombing started to let the military know that it was a hospital being bombed. Yet, according to the surviving staff the bombing continued 30 minutes after said call. The 37 people wounded were; doctors, nurses, pharmacists, patients and caregivers, 19 of those people are now dead. Half of the hospital has been destroyed beyond repair.
I want someone to try to explain this to me. Explain the logic in murdering people. The stipulation is do not explain this horrific murder using these words, “terrorism,” “terrorist,” “America,” “Afghanistan,” “Taliban,” “government,” “evil,” “bad guy,” “security,” “freedom” and “politics.” What is left for an excuse of the murder of these people? Nothing. There is no logical reason why this atrocity should have happened. The US military is not fighting for our freedom when they murder people in a hospital. Nor were they fighting for our freedom when they murdered a wedding party or the family gathering wood on a hillside. 
The American public needs to be more informed about the blood on their hands. After all, $596 billion of all taxes collected in 2014 were spent on military funding according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The next statement and question is, “I am only one person. What can I do to change how the government spends my taxes?” This is true and there is no easy answer. Some people will say vote others will say burn the whole system down because it is broken beyond repair. This is why voting does nothing, in my opinion. Has Obama done anything to stop the murder of Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis, Palestinians, Saudis, Pakistanis and Libyans? Did G.W. Bush do anything to stop the murder of those same people? Nope. So if the most conservative and somewhat liberal leaning politicians are preforming the same exact job with the same exact results, what is the difference? If people all around the world are being murdered by the US military with 17 percent of the public tax dollars, then the American public should have to live with hearing those consequences and hearing about them often in an unbiased report. Maybe then the public will start seeing humans as humans and not simply as a “terrorist.” Think about it like this, that 9 year old girl that survived a US airstrike but lost her whole family, now sees the US as the terrorist. The words “terrorist,” “evil” and “bad guy” are relative. Any of those words can be used against any person or government doing harm and damage to anyone.
If every citizen stood up and spoke out against acts like these maybe we could influence the politicians in power to respect human life no matter the country of origin. At the end of the day we are all humans and we need to recognize each other as such. In that recognition I believe we can achieve peace. Ultimately no life has more value over another. John Lennon had a few things right and this song is one of those ideas.

“Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one.”

I can only hope one day I will see everyone as a dreamer, so I know my fight for equal rights for every human, no one person excluded regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race or religion, is achieved. 
“No one is free until we are all free,” MLK
Total liberation for all.