Print

Ash writes: "What the U.S. commercial broadcast media failed to mention as they portrayed the president as strong and decisive was that emergency workers in Mosul are still pulling bodies from the rubble 22 days after U.S. airstrikes killed, at latest count, 300 civilians."

A boy amid the ruins in West Mosul, April 2017. (photo: Felipe Dana/AP)
A boy amid the ruins in West Mosul, April 2017. (photo: Felipe Dana/AP)


The President Is Horrified by Slaughtered Children. Good.

By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News

07 April 17

 

“It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

– U.S. President Donald Trump

hat’s a powerful renunciation of military crimes against civilians. What the U.S. commercial broadcast media failed to mention as they portrayed the president as strong and decisive was that emergency workers in Mosul are still pulling bodies from the rubble 22 days after U.S. airstrikes killed, at latest count, 300 civilians.

Many of the dead were beautiful babies and God’s children as well. Chemical weapons are indeed horrific and should absolutely be banned. It is likely little comfort, however, to the surviving family members in Mosul that their loved ones were killed by American-made high explosive bombs rather than by sarin gas.

The Mosul attack is particularly troubling in light of reports by Amnesty International that U.S.-backed Iraqi authorities instructed residents not to flee the area prior to the strikes, apparently increasing the death toll.

The Mosul attack was not the first time in Trump’s brief tenure that U.S. airstrikes have slaughtered civilians. Newsweek reports that as of March 31, estimates by human rights groups put the number of civilians killed by U.S. airstrikes under Donald Trump’s authority at nearly “1,500.”

Most of the talking heads on U.S. television last night seemed more intent on justifying the U.S. retaliatory strikes on the Syrian airbase at Homs than even mentioning the rapidly expanding death toll from U.S. military actions under the Trump administration, let alone the prodigious Obama era body count.

If beautiful babies slaughtered in horrific fashion actually do matter at this stage, as always, the United States now under the direction of a pathological liar and consummate propagandist is the not greatest defender, but the greatest offender.

Under sustained pressure over Russian collusion allegations and domestic policy failures, Trump appears enthusiastic about playing the role of military enforcer. Tough talk and body counts will reliably drive popularity ratings in America the beautiful, even if nothing else does.

George W. Bush was political toast on September 10th, 2001. He was seen as an illegitimate occupant of the White House after what was widely viewed as a stolen election. The Republicans looked poised to a take major beating in the 2002 midterms. That all changed the next day.

In America, war is the great unifier and the great destroyer of social fabric. If the president needs cheap political currency, he can always get it through military action.

Bashar al-Assad is a brutal, iron-fisted ruler who will not hesitate to use illegal weapons, torture, and murder against his own people. But newly-elected president Donald Trump is on pace to be a significantly more prolific killer than even Assad.

Trump may not know what he’s doing, but the people on the ground struggling to pull their loved ones, many beautiful babies, from the rubble do.

We are getting a steady stream of images of civilians killed by Assad’s attack. But the images of U.S. war strikes remain largely hidden from view. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

Indeed.



Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page