Saturday, May 14, 2011
Free-fire zones
Last night I watched Pamuk Orhan, Turkish Nobel Laureate, talk with Charlie Rose for an hour. I was exhausted but I didnt want to miss the interview. I think Pamuk was imprisoned for writing fiction which mentions the Turkish holocaust. When someone cautioned Hitler against genocide Hitler said that Turkey did it and no one noticed. During World War I there were German soldiers in the area of the Armenian genocide and they were ordered to take no photos. But one soldier took a great risk and made photographs of the Armenian genocide. The term "battle field" is ironic because for centuries the battles actually took place IN FIELDS (the sort that cows inhabit) and they took place between forces in uniforms and there was an obvious distinction between combatants and civilians. But in Vietnam a woman or a child could be the enemy which I assume is why there were "free fire zones" which I assume means that one may shoot anything that moves. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fire_zone Now I would imagine that some women and children were shot and you would consider them as "innocent victims." When our great hero McCain blaket bombed Hanoi do you imagine that any innocent people were killed. When Dresden was fire-bombed were any innocent people killed. How about Hiroshima. War is hell.
