I had another meeting on ISAF today. Since this was one of our half work days, I slept in late, ate brunch, then headed out on the shuttle. Before we leave the compound on our short road trips, we're always given a brief on the route, actions upon contact, communications channels, and potential threats, among other things. We had heard that the British Council in the government sector of Kabul had just recently been hit by the Taliban with a complex attack consisting of car bombs and several individual well armed suicide bombers. Today is the 92nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from Great Britain.
If you read about the British Council (http://www.britishcouncil.org/afghanistan.htm), you'll realize that they're an educational outreach organization. Obviously the British Embassy was too difficult for these sleaze to attack, so they decided to go after low hanging fruit. Up to this point, nine people were killed in the attack besides the filthy insurgents. Those casualties included seven Afghans, three of which were employees of the Council, a Nepalese Gurkha working as a security guard, and a member of the New Zealand special forces. The Taliban immediately took credit for the attack inflating the numbers five fold as is their M.O. in order to capitalize on their perceived success. They issued a statement that they just wanted to remind the British they had won their independence and would do it again. Obviously at the expense of their fellow countrymen.
In the Middle East, conflicts wage on forever and never get resolved because the concept of revenge is inter-generational and can be passed on for up to seven generations. If you think about it by this logic, each act of revenge in and of itself is cause to justify more revenge, so the chain never gets broken. What a sad life these people lead only thinking of hateful ways to exact revenge for something that happened far in the past and with no other recourse than to continue the violence on innocent generations.
I used to have a teacher who said, "The one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history." It took me a while to understand what he meant, but basically as a teacher of history, he was trying to convey the concept that if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. People throw around the saying "forgive and forget". These are probably two of the worst two words that could ever be put together. If we both forgive and forget the worst actions in our world's history, what's to stop them from happening again? We must never forget; however, forgiveness is something else entirely.
Forgiveness is often misunderstood. Forgiveness does not absolve. Forgiveness only means that you are giving up the desire to take revenge or some other action against a wrong done to you (or by extension someone or something close to you). Forgiveness is typically offered after someone has atoned for a wrongdoing against another. In order to make a sincere atonement, a person must do four things:
1) Admit they were wrong
2) Sincerely apologize for the wrong
3) Make or attempt compensation for the wrong
4) Make a sincere effort never do this wrong again
In my life I've been wronged by a number of individuals. I've been robbed, abused, cheated on, stolen from, lied to, and the list goes on. These people have at times demanded forgiveness after a half hearted "sorry" or apology and expected that once forgiveness is given, everything would be back to normal. This does not ever mean I will ever forget, but it does mean I have given up the right to exact my revenge upon them. These are two separate concepts, but many people are incapable of distinguishing the difference.
I work in an office that supports the U.S. Military's effort for reconstruction of Afghanistan. One of the programs we administer is the Afghan Reintegration Program, whereby we help train and rehabilitate former insurgents into productive members of a peaceful Afghan society. Forgiveness is crucial to the healing process in any conflict. Not doing this in Iraq was one of the worst mistakes we made in that war.
As I walked into the ISAF security screening corridor today, I noticed something I hadn't seen in the last few trips I had made. There was a painting on the inside of the "T" concrete blast walls of a Taliban religious policeman beating a woman in the ubiquitous blue burqa while a dove of peace flys overhead. In order for peace to take hold, we must forgive on both sides, but just as this painting endures on the "T" wall, we must never forget. After all, to err is human, to forgive divine.
More to follow.
If you read about the British Council (http://www.britishcouncil.org/afghanistan.htm), you'll realize that they're an educational outreach organization. Obviously the British Embassy was too difficult for these sleaze to attack, so they decided to go after low hanging fruit. Up to this point, nine people were killed in the attack besides the filthy insurgents. Those casualties included seven Afghans, three of which were employees of the Council, a Nepalese Gurkha working as a security guard, and a member of the New Zealand special forces. The Taliban immediately took credit for the attack inflating the numbers five fold as is their M.O. in order to capitalize on their perceived success. They issued a statement that they just wanted to remind the British they had won their independence and would do it again. Obviously at the expense of their fellow countrymen.
In the Middle East, conflicts wage on forever and never get resolved because the concept of revenge is inter-generational and can be passed on for up to seven generations. If you think about it by this logic, each act of revenge in and of itself is cause to justify more revenge, so the chain never gets broken. What a sad life these people lead only thinking of hateful ways to exact revenge for something that happened far in the past and with no other recourse than to continue the violence on innocent generations.
I used to have a teacher who said, "The one thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history." It took me a while to understand what he meant, but basically as a teacher of history, he was trying to convey the concept that if we don't learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. People throw around the saying "forgive and forget". These are probably two of the worst two words that could ever be put together. If we both forgive and forget the worst actions in our world's history, what's to stop them from happening again? We must never forget; however, forgiveness is something else entirely.
Forgiveness is often misunderstood. Forgiveness does not absolve. Forgiveness only means that you are giving up the desire to take revenge or some other action against a wrong done to you (or by extension someone or something close to you). Forgiveness is typically offered after someone has atoned for a wrongdoing against another. In order to make a sincere atonement, a person must do four things:
1) Admit they were wrong
2) Sincerely apologize for the wrong
3) Make or attempt compensation for the wrong
4) Make a sincere effort never do this wrong again
In my life I've been wronged by a number of individuals. I've been robbed, abused, cheated on, stolen from, lied to, and the list goes on. These people have at times demanded forgiveness after a half hearted "sorry" or apology and expected that once forgiveness is given, everything would be back to normal. This does not ever mean I will ever forget, but it does mean I have given up the right to exact my revenge upon them. These are two separate concepts, but many people are incapable of distinguishing the difference.
I work in an office that supports the U.S. Military's effort for reconstruction of Afghanistan. One of the programs we administer is the Afghan Reintegration Program, whereby we help train and rehabilitate former insurgents into productive members of a peaceful Afghan society. Forgiveness is crucial to the healing process in any conflict. Not doing this in Iraq was one of the worst mistakes we made in that war.
As I walked into the ISAF security screening corridor today, I noticed something I hadn't seen in the last few trips I had made. There was a painting on the inside of the "T" concrete blast walls of a Taliban religious policeman beating a woman in the ubiquitous blue burqa while a dove of peace flys overhead. In order for peace to take hold, we must forgive on both sides, but just as this painting endures on the "T" wall, we must never forget. After all, to err is human, to forgive divine.
More to follow.
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