Casualties of war

I just finished watching the movie "Eye in the Sky" starring Alan Rickman and Helen Mirren. The movie was directed by Gavin Hood and was released last April 1, 2016 (New York and Los Angeles). The movie is about Lieutenant General Frank Benson(Alan Rickman) and Colonel Katherine Powel (Helen Mirren) who are facing political opposition about their mission to take out a group of suicide bombers in Nairobi, Kenya using a drone missile strike. The approval to launch the missile was put into hold due to the presence of a pre-teen girl named Alia who was selling home-made bread within the target zone. The two military officers were forced to launch the strike to contain and kill the suicide bombers. Unfortunately, poor Alia was killed during the process.

Before the attack, the movie was able to show the story of Alia. She was an only child of a Nairobian Muslim parent living in poverty. Her father was a bicycle repairman while her mother was in-charge of baking the bread that she sells in the market. In the movie, Alia was being presented as a young Muslim girl who was beginning to question some of the old practices being imposed against Muslim women, like studying (some Muslims countries and communities restrict education opportunities for girls), wearing of dress that will not show any "skin" even in a hot climate, playing or engaging in sports in front of men, etc. In short, she is being portrayed as the future crusader of Muslim women.

This movie taught me one thing. In the event of war, there is no right or wrong, there are no winners but there are guaranteed casualties like Alia.

War is not the answer. If we don not end war, war will end us.

All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal - John Steinbeck

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