Posted on 09/29/2012 1:46:02 PM PDT by NYer
A moral question
It doubtlessly is a damning report that the researchers of the American universities have delivered on America’s drone adventurism. It succinctly brings out what a horrendous toll it has been exacting on innocent civilian lives and keeping the whole lot of populace in the targeted areas in constant dread of drones and their fatal assaults. The psychological impact on the people is just terrible, it underlines. But will this report have any impact on the American strategists at all? Not even an outside chance.
Over these times, the civil society worldwide is up in protest against this American adventurism. It wants it to be stopped as this leads up inevitably to the killing of the civilians indefensibly. For this brutal collateral damage, even the UN human rights community is raising its voice increasingly loudly against the use of drone attacks by the American warlords to take out targets they deem a threat to American lives and assets.
The main plea of the dissenting voices is that the drones may be killing the terrorists, but no lesser are they mowing down the innocent civilians who have nothing to do with terrorism. There indeed are very many voices that do not condone even the killing of terrorists in drone attacks, equating it with extrajudicial murder. They argue that no law, national or international, provides for the killing of a criminal or a suspect. Instead, every effort must be made to arrest them and bring them to justice in a court of law.
Nonetheless, all these pleas have fallen on deaf ears in Washington, so far. The decision makers over there remain unimpressed by the factual reality that these drone assaults are in fact proving counterproductive and creating more recruits for terrorism and extremism. Even as this drone adventurism is palpably giving tremendous fillip to anti-Americanism worldwide, the American warlords yet stay unswayed. They are keeping up with it. Indeed, since the advent of Barack Obama’s presidency, they have further intensified it, raising a moral question that they must answer.
On what ground can they justify the killing of an innocent civilian even as collateral damage? The 9/11 holocaust was horrible, precisely because those slaughtered were no combatants but innocent civilians. And so has to be the killing of the civilians in the drone strikes. Indeed, with what peace of mind can President Obama sleep when even children get slaughtered in the drone assaults that he now personally approves? Appallingly enough, as part of his drone adventurism he has decreed that everyone within the vicinity of the targeted object be deemed a combatant, even if civilian, and liable to be decimated.
The extent of his adventurism’s viciousness can easily be visualised from the destructive range of the Hellfire missile fired by drones. It not only destroys the struck target. It annihilates the compounds and assets in the close vicinity and kills the human beings in and around. Doesn’t Obama’s conscience gets pricked when the Hellfire missile takes in its killer sweep a child playing with toys in his home or a mother feeding her baby in her compound? What sin have they committed to meet such a tragic demise? Or does he and his war commanders think that the child, the mother and the baby should perish as they are no Americans and their lives are not even worth a dime?
Here there is certainly a moral question that is becoming increasingly compelling with the day and the American warlords can no longer evade answering it. So prompt they have always been in raising the issue of extrajudicial killings elsewhere in the world. And that promptness they have now to show in their own case. Of course, one could have no sympathy or compassion for those who kill and maim the fellow human beings in suicide bombings and terrorist blasts. But the murder of those having nothing to do with terrorism in the US drone attacks cannot be acceptable either and on no pretext could it be condoned or justified.
Obama drones, kill lists he brags about: and not a peep from the left or the left media.
he is splattering children because he doesn’t have an answer to the distasteful question of what to do with prisoners.
if everyone is dead, there are no prisoners. no prisoners, no need for gitmo.
But that the islamist soeotoro is killing the islamists that he wants to kill gives me some pause for the further consolidation of his own power within the overall islamist system.
As muslims kill more muslims than they do anyone else, placed along with the murders of our Armed Forces personnel, our diplomats and their aides, plus God knows how many other Americans and foreign nationals he's killed on the QT, barry's likely high on the list of the most murderous muslim of all time, even to top muhamed himself before long.
My first guess would have been Muslim too, though it’s not super surprising he’s an Arab Christian.
As for slant, I wonder if the writer has ever directed this kind of moral accusation at the terrorists.
I think that is normal. Here in the west, we associate arabic with muslim because of all the terrorist attacks they have inflicted. For catholics and christians, it is very important to remember that Christ was born, died and resurrected in the Middle East. He never went to Rome, much less North America. Even more surprising for some is to realize that Jesus, His mother and the apostles spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew which was the language used in Jewish liturgical services. Aramaic evolved into .... Arabic! The word Allah was first used by christians, not muslims. It's origin is the Aramaic word Aloho, meaning God.
Following His resurrection, our Lord appeared to the apostles, sent them the gift of the Holy Spirit and told them to bring the "good news" to all nations. There were no trains or planes at that time. They set out from Jerusalem and went to the surrounding nations.
Though raised in the Roman Catholic Church, I now practice my faith in a Maronite (Eastern) Catholic Church which retains Aramaic as its liturgical language. The Maronite Catholic Church predates the Roman Catholic Church. It draws its liturgy from the ancient city of Antioch where Peter served as bishop before continuing on to Rome. In fact, some of the earliest Maronite churches are former synagogues where the entire congregation was converted. Some of the elements of the synagogue are retained, even today, in the design of Maronite Catholic Churches.
The pope visited Lebanon last week. There he met with representatives from the major catholic, orthodox, protestant and muslim communities. Our small parish tends to be a microcosm of what one finds in the Middle East. The community began as predominantly Lebanese but over the past century, evolved into one that mirrors what Pope Benedict found in in Lebanon. We are comprised of catholics from the Latin, Melkite and Maronite Churches, Syriac Orthodox christians and, occasionally, a muslim visitor. We are Lebanese, German, Dutch, Irish, German, Polish and a mixed pedigree of nationalities. The New Testament readings are in English and Arabic, which is the official language of Lebanon. Our pastor's family just arrived from Lebanon. They only speak Arabic and a smattering of French. I sat behind them today and let me assure you, these are very devout christians!
We need to remember the persecution being suffered by ALL christians in the Middle East and pray for them. This is the land of Jesus Christ! What is happening there will eventually happen here, though perhaps not in our lifetime. Thank you both for your prayers!
That’s nice.
I reiterate that I wonder if the writer has ever directed this kind of moral accusation at the terrorists. I’d guess not, though I’d be happy to be proven otherwise.
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