Donald Trump, the so-called leader of the free world, made his first foreign visit as president to an absolute monarchy, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a petrostate legendary for its complete absence of democratic institutions and rampant violations of human rights. The signature foreign-policy development that Trump announced in Riyadh over the weekend was a massive, $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Many people are going to be killed by this flood of weaponry. But this is not a done deal; Trump’s affinity for autocrats, strongmen and bullies is facing resistance. As the world processes the horror of the suicide bombing in Manchester, England, where most of the victims were young girls out for a concert, we should brace ourselves for another wave of similar, innocent casualties, this time in Yemen, the target of relentless, U.S.-supported Saudi Arabian bombardment.
Start with the premise that killing children is wrong, period. It is as wrong in Manchester as it is in Sanaa, Yemen. It is wrong to kill a child as an act of war, whether the killing is done by a U.S. soldier, a remote pilot of a U.S. Predator drone, a Saudi Arabian pilot of a U.S. provided F-35 or, to use the current term, a terrorist.
“Start with the premise that killing children is wrong, period. It is as wrong in Manchester as it is in Sanaa, Yemen. It is wrong to kill a child as an act of war, whether the killing is done by a U.S. soldier, a remote pilot of a U.S. Predator drone, a Saudi Arabian pilot of a U.S. provided F-35 or, to use the current term, a terrorist.”
When a suicide bomber exploded a bomb at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester this week, those killed were almost entirely from among her immense fan base: young girls—tweens—and their parents. The newscasts appropriately labeled the attack “barbaric.” Jump to the first week of the Trump administration, for example. Then, with expected hubris, Trump and his surrogates touted a “successful” raid in Yemen, despite the death of a Navy SEAL and loss of a helicopter. What went largely unreported, at first, were the 30 civilian casualties of that attack, many of them women and children, including an 8-year-old girl, Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki. Her name is known because she was the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Islamic cleric who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Her older brother, 16-year-old Denver-born Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, was killed in a separate drone strike two weeks after their father was killed. Abdulrahman didn’t know his father had been assassinated, and was trying to locate his father when the U.S. military killed him.
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