“Suffer not the little children….”

By Kary Love

      Seems like every day brings a report of some new atrocity resulting from US wars somewhere in the world.  It’s getting to the point it is a fulltime job just to keep up on them.  Doesn’t pay very well, and it’s depressing, it’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.  Don’t they?

Remember when America was the country that liberated prisoners from concentration camps rather than putting kids separated from their parents in camps?  When America stood for the idea the kids ought not to be legitimate targets in war? When wars were fought to give the kids a future, not waste them today? When America liberated the slave from the master and established liberty and justice for all?

No?  Me neither, not in my lifetime. But at least there was the pretense that the big, bad American military-industrial-congressional behemoth tried to advance justice. Sure, there was collateral damage because war is hell, but overall the benefits justified the errors. That was the mythos anyway.

But now kids on school buses are killed by US bombs provided to our “allies,” the most trustworthy, human rights-advancing, freedom loving, Saudi Arabians in their “war” on Yemen. “Are we, at last, sir, devoid of all decency?” Seems like it to me.

I am puzzled.  9-11-01 was carried out by 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudis. Maybe the Saudi government or some of its members or minions were involved.  But the USA invaded Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and threatens Iran?  Some magical sleight of hand is exercised and Saudi Arabia is our friend and we arm them to kill kids in Yemen, one of the five poorest nations in the world—average annual income $449?

I have nothing but questions on this,  no answers. Is it heroic to bomb kids?  Are these my new and improved and exceptional “heroes”—kid bombers? Do I thank the Saudis for their service? How about the US military personnel who fuel their planes, and provide the munitions?  Or the mercenary contractors?  Whom do I thank?

Do I thank the Congress that takes my tax dollars to bomb kids? Do the congress people get their cut? The President who signs the “deals” to carry it out (hint: he may not have divested himself of his many military contractor/weapons-manufacturing investments and now he makes policies that help them and him profit every day)?  The Courts who refuse to hear legal challenges to the apparent illegality of nondeclared wars contrary to the express language of the supreme law of the land?  Whom can I thank?

Surely, someone is deserving of my thanks. After all, future terrorists have been “neutralized.”  Hearts and minds have been won.  I am safer so I can go shopping at the mall. Whom do I thank for this “service”?

“Suffer not the little children to come unto me,” Jesus is reported to have said.  Apparently, He liked kids.  Well, these kids, hopefully, have come unto him, though not without suffering.  I really would like to know, whom do I thank?