{"id":1182,"date":"2017-02-02T22:46:51","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T03:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/?p=1182"},"modified":"2017-02-02T22:46:51","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T03:46:51","slug":"wont-somebody-think-of-the-children1-yemen-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davideriknelson.com\/sbsb\/index.php\/2017\/02\/wont-somebody-think-of-the-children1-yemen-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"“Won’t Somebody Think of the Children!!1!” (Yemen Edition)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“On the campaign trail, Trump endorsed killing relatives of terrorist suspects, which is a war crime. \u201cThe other thing with the terrorists is you have to take out their families, when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families,\u201d he told Fox News in December 2015.”<\/i> (source<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If your position is “Trump said we should kill the families of ‘terrorists’\u2014an abominable, authoritarian war crime\u2014and now he’s doing just that!” well, way back in 2016, when we had a\u00a0President with\u00a0a Noble Peace Prize on his mantle, we dropped thousands of bombs on Yemen\u00a0(google it<\/a>), and it isn’t like those somehow magically only killed sworn soldiers of AQAP. \u00a0A bomb dropped from a drone\u00a0isn’t somehow more accurate than a highly trained SEAL with an excellent rifle standing in the same room as someone. \u00a0But, man oh man, do we suddenly give a fuck about Yemen, and military operations in Yemen, and civilian casualties in Yemen! \u00a0Better late than never, amiright?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Nawar
Nawar al-Awlaki was 8 years old. Now she’s dead. Don’t forget to pay your taxes on April 18!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m once again reminded of\u00a0Penn & Teller’s Fishes and Loaves<\/a>:<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Penn and Teller were scheduled to appear on Letterman, and so they prepared a new twist on a classic “broken and restored watch” routine<\/a>. In their improved version, they’d borrow\u00a0Letterman’s\u00a0watch, smash it, then wheel out a big aquarium and sprinkle the parts in the water, where they\u2019d dissolve and the fish would eat them. Letterman\u00a0would then freely select one of the fish, Teller would scoop it out with a net, they\u2019d gut and and ta-da!<\/em>, there would be the whole, ticking watch in the fish\u2019s guts!<\/p>\n

But the network standards and practices lawyers\u00a0wouldn\u2019t let them do that trick; it\u2019d be too brutal to have an animal killed on screen. So Penn and Teller re-jiggered the routine: Instead of an aquarium full of live fish, they\u2019d wheel out a fishmonger\u2019s ice table with six dead fish on it. They\u2019d take the host\u2019s watch, smash it, sprinkle the bits in the ice, the bits would dissolve, the host would freely select a dead fish, and Teller\u2019d fillet it to reveal the watch. Standards loved it, the host loved it, and that\u2019s what went on live TV.<\/p>\n

The point of the story\u2014which is the sort of thing that belongs in an atheist\u2019s Bible\u2014is that everyone was more comfortable with six fish dying instead of one, provided they didn\u2019t have to watch.<\/p>\n

Same here: Dozens, hundreds, thousands of Yemeni kids are killed by bombs Made-in-the-USA, and we’re fine with it\u2014as long as we don’t have to see her fucking picture, as long as it’s done\u00a0from 36,000 feet by a drone piloted by some dude drinking a Sprite in a cubicle at Creech AFB and there’s no chance of one of “our boys” having to come home in a box in order to git ‘er done!<\/em> \u00a0God forbid we should look at what our tax dollars are buying.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It’s harsh, but it’s an apt summation of American foreign policy: Killing people’s families is our business model.<\/em><\/p>\n

It was our business model\u00a0in 2016, it will continue to be in 2017, the party, skin color, generation, and gender of the president notwithstanding. \u00a0If you don’t like that\u2014well, you’re in decent company, because I don’t like it either. \u00a0But let’s be honest with ourselves, and just take a damned second to sort out of we\u00a0really<\/em> don’t like\u00a0being in the Murder Business, or if we simply dislike it when a mouthy, pudgy, tactless New Yorker is the one murdering on our behalf.<\/p>\n

Finally, if you’re suddenly worried about Trump triggering “World War III,” then I invite you to consider something: Maybe\u2014just maybe\u2014WWIII has been going on for the last 15 years.\u00a0 <\/span>We just outsourced all the suffering to developing nations\u2014the same way we do with all the rest of our dirty work.<\/p>\n

Maybe this is something else to talk about tomorrow,\u00a0when you\u00a0call your reps<\/a>. I dunno; that’s between you and them.<\/p>\n