Posted by John, August 26th, 2010 - under Teachers, Terrorism.

Tags: Afghanistan

This is a story about a teacher, terrorism and the dead and dying in Afghanistan.

As part of an understanding conflict exercise a teacher in Western Australia asked her students to imagine they were terrorists. Their task was to plan a chemical or biological attack on Australians to inflict the greatest carnage possible.

All hell broke loose. It was inappropriate and insensitive to conduct such an exercise said the head of the Western Australian Department of Education. The Minister unsurprisingly said much the same thing. The teacher is receiving counselling.

One radio talkback caller said his son in Afghanistan would be horrified. One genius called for the teacher to be sacked. Another called for her jailing. No doubt these are the sorts of freedoms Australian soldiers are dying for in Afghanistan.

So much for the lie that we want to encourage critical thought in our kids.

Perhaps the teacher should have changed the facts slightly to more appropriately reflect the reality of conflict.

Imagine, she might have written, you are a brave Australian soldier in Afghanistan fighting in the front line against terrorism. Using drones or a patrol in Oruzgan province, plan an attack to kill the greatest number of Taliban terrorists (whom some people call Afghan civilians) you can.

That won’t happen either. Such an exercise might expose the reality of our invasion of Afghanistan for the US alliance.

21 Australians have died in Afghanistan for a piece of paper whose only beneficiaries are the ruling elite in Australia.

There is something else missing from this concern about the dead in Afghanistan. Western forces in Afghanistan have killed tens of thousands of Afghans, most of them villagers and some resistance fighters.

There are no parades for them just as there have been no parades for the 1.5 million Iraqis we have killed.

On the day the furore broke out about the teacher, Australian authorities were carrying out a practice exercise in response to a terrorist attack. No complaints about that.

Of course the exercise is bullshit. It’s really about creating more fear in Australia society and further contributing to Islamophobia.

One way to avoid unlikely individual terrorist attacks in Australia and other developed countries would be to stop invading and occupying Muslim lands and end support for their pro-Western dictators.

And of course the US could tomorrow impose a settlement on Israel that recognises the right of the Palestinians to live in their homeland. He who pays the piper calls the tune. Without US funding Israeli apartheid would collapse.

We are the terrorists. Bring the troops home.