After a bunch of school children are killed, American police track the killer to Pakistan. There they run into some legal problems: not only did the killer use a drone instead of an assault rifle, he had a full-fledged legal opinion drafted by a full-fledged Pakistani lawyer justifying his drone program. And he won’t let the cops read the thing. Oh well, nothing to do.
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Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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The fact of the matter is:
There was a visit to the school by a former U.S. military general who was in command in Pakistan and suspected of attacks upon that country. The kids were just collateral damage.
If the kids are dead, then they had substantive terrorist connections.
If you’re interested in some information on how the “drone era” came to be and where it may be headed, see Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States s01e10 (season 1, episode 10 of the series).
I agree with Falco, those kids had terrorist connections, why else would they now be dead?
«Said the mouse to the cur, ‘Such a trial, dear Sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath.’
‘I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury,’ Said cunning old Fury: ‘I’ll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death.»
Henri
I don’t know Ted, you really seem to spend a lot of time on this drone issue, and… well, I like you, I like your work, but, I don’t really care about blasting muslims to smithereens. Whether innocent or not, who cares. They just aren’t me. They aren’t my people. In fact, they are opposed to me and my people, so, fuck them. It seems a little naive for you to identify so much with them. Have you read Sam Harris’ critiques of Islam?
@Aaron, thank you very much for your honesty. Really. Most people I think agree with you. Certainly most editors seem to. No one really cares about the drone strikes. To answer your question, I don’t know why I am so different from so many other people, but I have always had trouble dehumanizing other human beings. Maybe it’s the fact that I travel a lot, and have gotten to meet a lot of people, including a lot of Muslims, even militant Taliban, and have found that there really isn’t much difference between them and us. Maybe it’s the fact that I come from a very small, fractured, messed-up family. So I don’t identify that much with my own kind. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve always felt like a foreigner here in the United States, unable to relate to many of my countrymen. As is the case with this very popular bad movie that we’re talking about now. But I did resent that you call me naïve. I don’t particularly care for Islam, but I don’t really particularly care for religion. All religions are lies. Lies are stupid distractions. But that doesn’t make it okay for us to go around killing people just for fun. I guess the part that I really find galling, almost more than the killing itself, is how high and mighty we talk even while we are acting so low.
You’re right Aaron – years back, a work colleague who had grown up in Afghanistan told me that the US was going to rue the day they stepped into the Middle East. He said that the American people had no clue as to the nature of the people they were going to mess with, and that the idea that you could beat them and that they would back down was impossible with their culture, religion and mindset. He said that the Middle East – especially Afghanistan was a Tar Baby that you could never get away from. Every drone strike is liking whacking a beehive with a stick – with the same results – let alone the ethical issues…
Ted, I think it’s the fact that you travel (whether “a lot” or “at all”). Folks who get out of the cesspool they live in tend to see people as people rather than as animals – or irrelevant trash.
I’ve lived in Germany and currently live in Mexico. In my experience these countries’ people simply don’t have the attitude that they are superior to all others. And living amongst them tends to alter that arrogance that is so prevalent in the U.S.
Keep up the good work. 🙂