Tweet
President Obama made an eloquent and heartfelt speech at the prayer vigil for the people who were killed in Connecticut. The fact that the majority of victims were very young children seems to have broken peoples’ hearts more than any of the other recent school shootings. I have to ask, does a 6 year old actually has greater intrinsic value than a 14 year old high school student or a promising young adult university student?
People are so affected that gun control is actually being seriously discussed. At least in regards to a ban on military equivalent assault weapons, high capacity clips, and the so-called gun show loophole. Approximately 40% of the guns purchased are sold without background checks. Calling it a loophole makes light of the gaping highway to unrestricted gun ownership. Even some prominent Republicans who previously were against such measures have changed their position.
The prospects of serious gun legislation appears greater than at any time since the 10 years of the assault rifle ban expired in 2004. Maybe it was the deaths of 20 children that was the magic number to get the President to decide that enough is enough. That it must stop.
Maybe, maybe not. If the killing of 20 children was the straw that broke the camel’s back in the gun debate for Obama and others, why didn’t the killing of 21 children (and 14 women) in December 2009 have any discernible effect? Maybe it was that the children in question were 7000 miles away in Yemen. Maybe it just didn’t feel as personal considering they all died without knowing what hit them as the Tomahawk cruise missile and cluster bombs detonated. On the news footage, I didn’t see one person interviewed from Sandy Hook who wasn’t white. Maybe racism was a factor. Maybe Americans believe that a Yemeni mom doesn’t love or miss her child as much as a Connecticut mom.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not trying to minimize the horrific event in Connecticut. On the contrary, I can’t even begin to express the sadness I feel. Like me, you probably find it hard to imagine that the Newtown shooter wasn’t mentally disturbed. No one in their right mind could do such an awful and immoral thing.
The question I’d like you to consider is: what does this say about our “leaders?” What of the callousness that allows them to continue to kill innocent people with drone strikes? What of the idea that any male of military age can be targeted for execution, without a chance to mount a defense and then the subsequent cover-up? That is, unless it becomes impossible to deny the reality.
What of the heartless way anyone who dares to report the truth is treated? Bradley Manning is an example. Another is the Yemeni journalist, Abdulelah Haider Shaye. Shaye had the audacity to investigate the attack and report what he saw. He found credible evidence to support the notion that the US was behind the bombing. Did he get a reward for identifying the individuals responsible? Nope, in fact at Obama’s insistance he is still incarcerated.
Why did the news of the Connecticut shooting effect us so profoundly? The memory of the kids and teachers will be in the minds of people for the foreseeable future. Perhaps more significant is that the Yemeni children have all but been forgotten. President Obama stood in front of the prayer vigil and said the name of each child killed. A moving gesture, for sure. I’d like to see the children killed in the drone strike treated with the same respect and reverence. I doubt Obama is likely to take that initiative. So I have taken it upon myself. Thanks to Wendy at Firedoglake for making the list available in her post.
YEMEN
Name | Age | Gender
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
16 Comments
Personally, I think all the efforts, like this one, to make what happened in Newtown about drone strikes in Pakistan to be counterproductive.
The only commonality is that sometimes in a hellfire missile strike children are killed. My reaction when I see something such as your post here is to “turn the page” and even roll my eyes. To me, it diminishes any effort to bring light to what is being done in our name over there. I hope you consider my criticism and focus on hellfire missiles and the drones that wield them and keep Newtown out of it. I think you are hurting your own cause trying to conflate the two.
Elliot is probably correct since Amerikans are so callous and hypocritical. Comparing our exceptional wonderful babies with those Others is just sinful.
that is so not the point and you know it.
“Maybe racism was a factor. Maybe Americans believe that a Yemeni mom doesn’t love or miss her child as much as a Connecticut mom.”
Well, you know, THOSE PEOPLE don’t value human life like WE Americans do. The same thing was said about the native peoples of North America, the African slaves, the Spaniards, the Filipinos, the Latin Americans(especially the Mexicans), the Germans, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, the Vietnamese, the Russians, and now the Afghans and Iraqis and Persians and others.
Americans exceptionally value American lives over any others. Remember the old Saturday Night Live news skit with Chevy Chase?
“And in world news, an airliner crashed in India and 300 people were killed. But that’s all right, no AMERICANS were on board.”
Racism IS a factor. Never doubt it. I, a white American, says this. I’ve been bombarded with this bullshit all my life. And I’m 55 this year.
Please elaborate as to the point of your comment.
No. If you can’t distinguish between US government hellfire missile attacks against citizens of another country and lunatic murder sprees happening here in the United States, there is no thing I can say to aid you in your understanding.
While the senseless murders of schoolchildren and adults in
Newtown should not be literally “conflated” with the
killing of children in drone attacks in Yemen, Afghanistan,
or Pakistan, neither should we imagine that they are
completely unrelated.
As has been stated here, most of us quite reasonably assume
that anyone who would kill children in the fashion of the
Newtown tragedy must be mentally ill. We do not take that
killer as acting in our names or expressing our common
values.
In contrast, the drone killings result from deliberate acts
of policy, and acts of policy distinct from those of a
traditional just war ethic, as embodied in part by
international law. While civilians, including children, may
become unintentional casualties in war, the assumption is
that force is being used to meet “military necessity,” and
within the constraints of the law of war.
Many of the drone strikes, however, are not directed
against traditional military targets, but rather are
“targeted killings,” itself an illicit policy. The intended
victims are selected and placed on “kill lists,” a
procedure less like the scene on a hot battlefield than
like the “due process” leading up to the murders of Fred
Hampton and Mark Clark on December 4, 1969 in a “targeted
operation,” as it might now be called, against the Black
Panther movement in Chicago.
When a government makes assassination an official policy,
then it should be held strictly liable for innocent
children killed in the course of its illicit operations to
murder others. The ethical principle is much like that
expressed by the Anglo-American rule of common law that
someone intending to murder A, who instead shoots and kills
B, will be held guilty of the murder of B as if that person
were the intended victim.
Such connections should be drawn with great sensitivity,
and should not be raised in such a way as to create either
the appearance or reality of minimizing the magnitude of a
domestic tragedy. But the drone killings and other
“targeted operations” have an especially insidious quality
because they are public policy carried out in our names,
like the death penalty, rather than relatively isolated
acts of mentally ill people.
There is another part of this madness that needs to be examined. The men and women who execute these targeted killings are among us daily. They spend their work shifts splashing their victms and then return home to lead a Normal life. I wonder if any of these UAV operators have refused orders to execute their targets and what has become of them. I also wonder how many of them enjoy their gruesome work.
Most of the population supports or at least condones their killing because it gives them a sense of security and the innocent collateral damage is ignored.
There is something deeply troubling about a country that rations empathy and hoards it only for their citizens.
May I recommend your comment, Margo Schulter? One of the best I’ve read lately on this site; a simply and elegantly direct parsing of the targeted assassinations by signature strike and pre-judgment (as in ‘every male in ____ (fill in the nation) of military age is considered to be an ‘enemy combatant’ unless it can posthumously be proven otherwise.
Does the US then pay blood money to the victims’ families? It may be so.
@ feetodafire: Good on getting the names out; I gave them to Dave Swanson, also. He has a big megaphone.
Dear wendydavis,
Thank you for your further thoughtful reflections on this homicidal targeting, and certainly you have my permission to recommend my comment, an area where I should learn more about the protocol.
Since there don’t exist Like buttons here, I think we just rec comments verbally, Margo Schulter. ;o)
Thank you as well for bring up the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark; we need to remember their names. Your vast knowledge and memory of history is admirable as all giddy-up to me, as I own very little memory now.
Hey, feet; Dave Lindorff has the list up today in How Many Kids Have You Killed Today?
Elliot made a good point but you, wayoutwest made a better one. I guess the point I was trying to make (poorly as it may have been stated) was that we as a country/culture need to address why the children in Newtown got such a strong emotional response and the children killed in the ME hardly gets noticed. It really does seem that we value white kids more than brown kids, or maybe it’s Christian children over Muslim children. Nothing good can be said about either. Both events seem senseless and random to me. But a good percentage of Americans have no problem and in fact support the drone killings. It would seem a positive step to ask why that is.
Thank you, well said.
Wow, you said exactly what I was trying to say only better. Thanks very much.
I am glad it created some additional thought & discussion. It served its purpose as soon as it inspired Margo Schulter to write her phenomenally articulate statement about the drone program.