The Names Behind the Collateral Damage

Drones Watch has compiled a list of the names of children killed in America’s drone bombings of Pakistan and Yemen. Should a major terrorist attack hit the United States, this is as likely a reason as any. Each one of these children is as infinitely valuable as the American children shot in school massacres, killed in gang violence, or murdered in anti-American terrorist attacks. It is hard to say what the worst thing the president has done is, but continuing and vastly escalating the drone killing, which hits far more civilians than “terrorists,” has got to be near the top of the list. For all those who think this is the least bit defensible, I wonder if they could come up with a coherent and persuasive reason the United States is bombing Pakistan or Yemen at all, and what good they think it accomplishes. For every bad guy killed, I guarantee more violent extremists are created. It doesn’t take much to push desperate people over the edge, but to motivate a previously peaceful person to engage in suicide violence, I can think of no better method than slaughtering their children by remote-controlled robots mockingly and menacingly swarming the night sky, as though from a deadly and futuristic alien race. How would Americans react if a foreign country was doing this to our own neighborhoods, regardless of the excuse?