Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Pity the Little Children

Trey Smith

Do you have children? Do they sit in your house playing happily? Do they sleep sweetly scrunched up in their warm beds at night? Do they chatter and prattle like funny little birds as you eat with them at the family table? Do you love them? Do you treasure them? Do you consider them fully-fledged human beings, beloved souls of infinite worth?

How would you feel if you saw them ripped to shreds by flying shrapnel, in your own house? How would you feel as you rushed them to the hospital, praying every step of the way that another missile won’t hurl down on you from the sky? Your child was innocent, you had done nothing, were simply living your life in your own house — and someone thousands of miles away, in a country you had never seen, had no dealings with, had never harmed in any way, pushed a button and sent chunks of burning metal into your child’s body. How would you feel as you watched him die, watched all your hopes and dreams for him, all the hours and days and years you would have to love him, fade away into oblivion, lost forever?

What would you think about the one who did this to your child? Would you say: “What a noble man of integrity and decency! I’m sure he is acting for the best.”

Would you say: “Well, this is a bit unfortunate, but it’s perfectly understandable. The Chinese government (or Iran or al Qaeda or North Korea or Russia, etc. etc.) believed there was someone next door to me who might possibly at some point in time pose some kind of threat in some unspecified way to their people or their political agenda — or maybe it was just that my next-door neighbor behaved in a certain arbitrarily chosen way that indicated to people watching him on a computer screen thousands of miles away that he might possibly be the sort of person who might conceivably at some point in time pose some kind of unspecified threat to the Chinese (Iranians/Russians, etc.), even though they had no earthly idea who my neighbor is or what he does or believes or intends. I think the person in charge of such a program is a good, wise, decent man that any person would be proud to support. Why, I think I’ll ask him to come speak at my little boy’s funeral!”

Is that what you would say if shrapnel from a missile blew into your comfortable house and killed your own beloved little boy? You would not only accept, understand, forgive, shrug it off, move on — you would actively support the person who did it, you would cheer his personal triumphs and sneer at all those who questioned his moral worthiness and good intentions? Is that really what you would do?

Well, that is what you are doing when you shrug off the murder of little Naeemullah. You are saying he is not worth as much as your child. You are saying he is not a fully-fledged human being, a beloved soul of infinite worth. You are saying that you support his death, you are happy about it, and you want to see many more like it. You are saying it doesn’t matter if this child — or a hundred like him, or a thousand like him, or, as in the Iraqi sanctions of the old liberal lion, Bill Clinton, five hundred thousand children like Naeemullah — are killed in your name, by leaders you cheer and support. You are saying that the only thing that matters is that someone from your side is in charge of killing these children. This is the reality of “lesser evilism.”
~ from The Reality of the “Lesser Evil” Is This Child Dead Enough for You? by Chris Floyd ~
I didn't have the heart to show little Naeemullah's photo moments before his death, but you can see it by following the link above. Naeemullah was yet another innocent casualty of America's drone war. He certainly is NOT a terrorist -- he WAS a little boy...a dead little boy.

If you voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and/or 2012, then you share some of the responsibility for Naeemullah's death. You share a measure of the responsibility because you helped to elect the man who is a big proponent of drones and these drones are killing little children in Arab countries.

You might be able to live with yourself by telling yourself that this was just an accident -- a big mistake -- and that efforts will be made not to replicate it. But you should know deep in your heart that "mistakes" like this will happen again and again because the missiles and bombs fired from drones aren't nearly as precise as we are told they are.

If you have a young child, would you want him or her to die like this? Would you want him or her to live in constant fear that they might die like this?

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