Our Right To Name And Shame

There is obviously a double standard when the West fights a terror war and when we do it more efficiently. The predispositions of the Western Govts and agencies are based on the premise that they consider themselves as humanity’s guardian angles capable of making rational decisions that we are ineffectual. Hence, Sri Lanka need to be scolded, threatened, disturbed and yanked back to “civilization.”

In any war civilian casualties are two folds: those who die in the crossfire and the ones are deliberately killed when forced into the conflict zones. Given that protecting the civilians is the responsibility of all warring factions, naturally, elected Govts are held to higher norms than lawless insurgents. However, it must be recognized the party that does not place greater emphasis on safety for civilians has little or no concern for them be held accountable regardless of its pedigree. In both conflicts, clearly there is “good” and “evil,” reminding us of the infamous “axis-of-evil”?

Therefore, the application of a standard to assess military actions must be consistent and it must not be based on the skin colour or how affluent a nation is with the power to influence worldwide opinion on the military actions it pursues. So can we expect the world to treat the NATO nations and Sri Lanka under the same status when chasing established ‘terrorists’ or not?

Civilian causalities in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are “collateral damages” according to the Western nations’ manual on aerial bombing. The NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer recently quoted saying on mounting Afghan civilian casualties “we realise that, if we cannot neutralise our enemy today without harming civilians, our enemy will give us the opportunity, while it was impossible to avoid civilian casualties entirely.”

With comments on the records like that, who are these scoundrels in the West to preach us on morality of warfare? Despite their own precautionary warfare to minimize civilian deaths the US, UK and France as members of NATO caused terror and paranoia among the Afghan civilians. The experience for civilians was similar in Serbia and Iraq when Western forces bombed them.

The Western emissaries were loud-mouthed as they could be before they made their much publicized trip to Sri Lanka, giving the impression to the world that they are speaking out of conscience in the interest of humanity. Without any moral high ground - it was all an attempt to create in us a marsh land of fear, guilt, shame and perceived but unquestionably flawed heroism on the part of West. They were No winners.

Therefore, I name Tamil diaspora, Hillary Clinton, David Miliband, Robert Blake (US Amb.) and Eric Solheim as enemies of our homeland.

Naming and shaming is one of the most sacred principle that I cherish - my love of freedom and truth-- that same freedom can be trampled and obliterated by seemingly bottom feeders working to build their own political careers. Yet, our story also contains within it the very simplest construction of the case: those who consort with an enemy will have to pay the political price.

Thus, naming names liberate us from a sense of guilt as spectators to a massive fraudulent “genocide” taking place in the Lion’s jaw in a place called Mullaitivu.