“America has a long history of killing little children.”

[HoosierRadical]

If America fails to finally find compassion for the legions of “other people’s” children it has killed, then it will never comprehend why its own, internal massacres occur with such frequency. “Indiscriminate violence made America what it is today.”

Americans love to think of themselves as innocents. As a result, when they are victimized they are not just in a state of mourning, but one of total disbelief when finding themselves on the receiving end of barbarity. In the moment of bereavement and shock the well documented acts of barbarity that have been and still are committed by their country are conveniently forgotten.

The reactions to the killing of 28 people, 20 of them children, at a school in Newtown, Connecticut are understandable. It is difficult to imagine not being saddened and angered by the news of the senseless slaughter, particularly the killings of children only six and seven years of age.

Yet it is wrong to behave as if little children have never before been targeted for death in this country. While president Obama may shed a tear at a press conference and take on the role of mourner in chief, he has ordered drone attacks which have killed young children. Between 2004 and 2012, 176 children in Pakistan were killed by American drone strikes. According to the president’s staff, he personally oversees the assassination “kill list,” which means he ordered the killing of 16 year old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki after having done the same to his father, Anwar al-Awlaki.

“It is wrong to behave as if little children have never before been targeted for death in this country.”

For complete article go to; http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/freedom-rider-killing-children-0

[villager]

1. We had plans to annihilate a whole planet of children with our nuclear weapons

The "grown ups" in this country are certifiably insane.

And deep down, everyone knows it.

[HoosierRadical]

5. Yes.

[Scootaloo]

2. But that's different...

If they have a name like Azaz-ur-Rehman, Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqy, Osama Haqqani, or Wajid Noor, they don't count. Emily, James, and Jessica's deaths are national tragedies, but the deaths of Syed, Fatima, and Nasser are national accomplishments.

It's all part of the US' great cultural engine of creating the "Other" ...There's a more concise term for this, but i'm reluctant to use it on DU.

[HoosierRadical]

4. Please speak its name!

Truth need to be spoken.

[Scootaloo]

7. well, again, I'm not comfortable with it...

I'll let this Kos article about Touré Neblett's use of the term on MSNBC stand in my stead;
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/16/1121037/-Toure-was-Right-Mitt-Romney-is-Engaging-in-the-Niggerization-of-Barack-Obama#

[former-republican]

3. Most people don't want to hear the ugly truth

They don't want to believe our government commits unintentional killing of children.

Lets be clear it's not targeted but the outcome is the same.

[HoosierRadical]

6. It is targeted

Last edited Fri Dec 21, 2012, 03:53 AM - Edit history (1)

We can't pretend it is not intentional when our gov't approves drone attacks in civilian areas.

[former-republican]

8. The children are not targeted , it's based on an acceptable loss factor

I'm not defending the practice of war but that's how it's done.
At this point I don't even know if I can call it war anymore.

It's more like a slaughter.

[Scootaloo]

9. Bingo. As I've been trying to get through people's heads in other parts of DU...

If you are using bombs and such weapons in civilian areas, you are deliberately targeting civilians. It's not fucking hard to understand, unless you're desperately trying to defend some shitheaded "my country is always right" mentality.

It's one thing if civilians get caught in the crossfire of bullets between fighting forces. It's just as horrible, but at least an argument can be made that that is not the intent in the fighting. But when you use a weapon completely designed to inflict mass, widespread destruction... you can under no circumstances say "oops, didn't mean to."

[otohara]

10. Pakistani Taliban Killing Women For Administering Polio

vaccines. I think the number is up to 9 now, one being an 18 year old. We send billions to Pakistan, corporations send our jobs to Pakistan. IF a US drone could track down these Taliban fucks, I would cheer their demise. They are sentencing children to a lifelong illness that fucking sucks.

Pakistani attacks on aid workers
Killing disease
Grisly attacks in Pakistan target those doing good to children

Dec 22nd 2012 | ISLAMABAD | from the print edition

ON DECEMBER 18th five health workers, all women, were gunned down in Pakistan in carefully planned and co-ordinated shootings. They were administering polio vaccinations. The following day a vaccination supervisor and her driver were killed. Several health workers are critically injured. The youngest killed was a 17-year-old in the north-western town of Peshawar. Others were working in poor, ethnic Pushtun districts in the southern megacity of Karachi, where polio workers have already been killed this year. The Pakistani Taliban or allied groups are the murderers, and they have now caused the UN to suspend its campaign to eradicate polio in Pakistan.

The country is one of only three countries left where polio is endemic, leading the world in 2011 in cases of the crippling childhood disease. It had been making progress in 2012. The country, backed by the UN, was striving urgently to immunize 34m children. Almost all the polio cases are among Pushtuns, who live mainly in north-west Pakistan or in Karachi. They also form the main ethnic group in the Pakistani Taliban http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21568773-grisly-attacks-pakistan-target-those-doing-good-children-killing-disease

[ronnie624]

11. That doesn't rationalize US aggression and mayhem in the world.

That's exactly the sort of extremism the US government fostered in the 1980s, anyway, as it was financing the Pakistani madrasas.

Negative consequences will always arise from self-serving US interventions.