Vile human cost of war ignored by Americans playing political games

By David McElroy · June 4, 2012

In 2009, three baby girls were among the victims of a missile attack launched on their village in Pakistan. They were badly burned and someone placed the three into a trash bin to die. A volunteer doctor from House of Charity found them and tried to save the little girls. Two of them died, but one of them, Shakira, lived. Barely.

Later the same year, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What will Shakira think when she grows up and discovers that the man who was inexplicably lauded for being a peacemaker was also the man who unleashed terror on her and her village?

How can we live in a world insane enough to give a peace prize to the man who gives orders for missiles to destroy random sections of remote villages just because someone suspects a U.S. enemy might be there?

It was under George W. Bush that the drone program was launched, but it was under Obama that it was greatly expanded. The administration has recently admitted that U.S. policy basically says that if you’re in the vicinity of a terrorist, you must be a terrorist. Can you imagine if police used that standard for criminal cases here? If a criminal suspect is said to be in an office building, they’d just blow up the office building.

The other people who would be killed or maimed? They’re probably criminals, too, if they’re associating with him. Right? What about the suspect’s indictment or trial? If someone high enough in the police determines the guy probably did it, isn’t that good enough?

What kind of ministers have we become?

Most Americans honestly don’t really care much about the many people such as Shakira whose lives are being destroyed by this illegal and unjust war against their homes. If Bush were still president, there would be riots in the streets from those on the progressive left about what’s going on. But the bulk of the progressives are silent on the matter. What’s more, when the rare people do have the temerity to criticize Obama, they’re savaged by other Democrats — because nothing is more important to them than protecting Obama against Mitt Romney. They’re perfectly happy to let children and other innocent people be killed and maimed — as long as it helps their “team” keep the White House.

As for Republicans, it’s pretty clear that the vast majority of them don’t care, either. In fact, if anything, they would like to see increased use of these attacks. If you talk to some of the advocates of this sort of policy — the ones who just want to kill everyone in the area of suspected terrorists — you wonder if they could really be as evil as their words make them appear. They’re not civilized. They treat the people in the area of these attacks as sub-human. That’s just as evil as what terrorists do when they strike here.

The terrorists who oppose the United States have grievances against the U.S. government — and they believe that innocent Americans are fair game in their struggle to respond to what they see as U.S. aggression. Isn’t this exactly the same attitude taken by those on “our side” who see collateral damage of innocents as perfectly acceptable?

Shakira is one of the very rare lucky victims. Because she happened to be rescued by a doctor from a U.S.-based charity, she eventually ended up in Houston getting medical care. She’ll never look right, but at least she’s alive. Others in her village — and hundreds of other villages — can’t say the same thing.

When Obama had just taken office, he was discussing with aides what the U.S. policies should be about indefinitely imprisoning terror suspects. In a new book called “Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency,” author Daniel Klaidman says Obama worried about how such powers might be used by future presidents.

“You never know who is going to be president four years from now,” Obama told aides. “I have to think about how Mitt Romney would use that power.”

Obama needs to think about his own use of lethal force instead of worrying about what some future president might do. Obama is killing children and other innocents all the time. His obscene actions are making brand new enemies for the United States. When Islamic extremists go to those villages, they’re likely to find ready recruits to attack the United States. Those people aren’t necessarily trying to serve religious ends. Many of them are simply angry that Americans keep destroying their homes and killing their friends and family.

The policy that the U.S. government is pursuing is insane and immoral. It’s not going to end, though, because the majority of the public either supports killing babies or is just plain indifferent. That’s disgusting.

All the Nobel Peace Prizes in the world can’t cover the sin of Barack Obama and those who support this evil.

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