Sunday, December 5, 2010

US Air Force kills civilians

Following on from my post earlier today, it would appear that while there is a lot of reason to be unhappy about how the disclosures from the so-called "US embassy cables" are being presented, even the most superficial reading of the facts should be enough to convince us that we are also dealing with an assortment of crimes here of which mass murder would appear to be a norm rather than an exception.

For instance, according to Amnesty International, "the leaked embassy cables also confirm reports of massive civilian casualties in a U.S. attack on Yemen one year ago. The cables disclosed that the Yemeni government agreed to falsely claim they were carrying out missile strikes that were actually coming from the U.S. military. Yemen’s Deputy Prime Minister is quoted mentioning the Abyan strike, in which dozens of local residents were killed, including 21 children."

Now, think about that for a second ..... or to make it clearer just try to envisage a situation where you are sitting at home with your family in Munich or New York, Glasgow or Madrid ....and a foreign airforce drop bombs on your home, wiping out everyone. Forget about the fact that the Yemini government was forced in the first instance to accept responsility and just consider the fact that dozens of Yeminis, including 21 children are dead, and the murderers are Americans who will never be held to account and who are employed by a government that is truely beyond redemption.

2 comments:

Sibylle Schulz said...

ja, das ist genau das perfide Argument-irgendwas muss schon dran sein-, genauso wie das, dass die Mehrheit sich nicht irren kann. Aber ein differenzierter Diskurs über die "Nachteile" der Demokratie und wie wir auf demokratische Weise mit sogenannten Andersdenkenden umgehen ist halt nichts für schnelle und populäre Lösungen.

seamus macniel said...

thanks for your comments:
"die "nachteile" der demokratie" .... of course, we can discuss the disadvantages of democracy but, as you yourself imply, we should first define "democracy", which if it is synonymus with "freedom" is indeed as rosa luxembourg said "freiheit des andersdenkenden" (the freedom to think differently).
moreover, democracy "hin oder her" .... any democracy that drops bombs on innocent civilians is, as far as those innocents are concerned, as contemptible as the worst of dictatorships. or do we really think they are interested whether the pilots of the planes dropping the bombs have freedom of speech back in their home countries?