She’s one of the many mentally challenged people that fill
our streets courtesy of Ronald Reagan’s medical plan for the homeless. She lives tucked in. She’s tucked in, in the
corner between a bus station kiosks and a wall, or alongside sidewalk-mounted
telephone relay boxes where she takes up little room. She’s not always open to being helped, but
today she takes my five dollars happily.
She smiles up at me through squint eyes: “I’m learning
Arabic.” She shows me her notebook of neat calligraphic practice. “And I have a friend who knows Farsi. She
tells me if I can read Arabic, I can read Farsi, too. This little squiggle here, it looks like a
cat. This word says “open.” I think if we’re going to bomb people, we
should at least learn their language. She
sounds more sane than some presidents I know who arrogate to themselves the
right to targeted assassination, without judge, jury or trial.
Do the United States
and its people really want to tell those of us who live in the rest of the
world that our lives are not of the same value as yours? That President Obama
can sign off on a decision to kill us with less worry about judicial scrutiny
than if the target is an American? Would your Supreme Court really want to tell
humankind that we, like the slave Dred Scott in the 19th century, are not as
human as you are? I cannot believe it.
I used to say of
apartheid that it dehumanized its perpetrators as much as, if not more than,
its victims. Your response as a society to Osama bin Laden and his followers
threatens to undermine your moral standards and your humanity.
I was raised during the years of World War II. During my childhood, although I was raised in
New York City, I experienced war-related dreams. One of these dreams I relate directly to Dr.
Mengele’s medical experiments on the bodies of children. It was the worse
nightmare of my life. Another dream, one that I still experience dates from
that time: There is a terrifying buzz coming at me from the sky. My entire body
begins to shake. I know that I am the target, because the projectile making
that sound has me in its crosshairs. I know I will surely die. I believe this dream is how a child who is
about to be killed experiences a drone strike.
The CIA has killed between 475-891 children in Pakistan
between the years 2004-2013; US covert action has killed between 72 and 177 children
in Yemen, and 11-57 children in Somalia.
These are the names of children killed:
- PAKISTAN
- Noor Aziz | 8 | male
- Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
- Noor Syed | 8 | male
- Wajid Noor | 9 | male
- Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
- Ayeesha | 3 | female
- Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
- Shoaib | 8 | male
- Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
- Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
- Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
- Maezol Khan | 8 | female
- Nasir Khan | male
- Naeem Khan | male
- Naeemullah | male
- Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
- Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
- Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
- Ziauddin | 16 | male
- Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
- Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
- Ilyas | 13 | male
- Sohail | 7 | male
- Asadullah | 9 | male
- khalilullah | 9 | male
- Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
- Khalid | 12 | male
- Saifullah | 9 | male
- Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
- Nawab | 17 | male
- Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
- Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
- Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
- Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
- Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
- Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
- Abdullah | 18 | male
- Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
- Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
- Shahbuddin | 15 | male
- Yahya Khan | 16 |male
- Rahatullah |17 | male
- Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
- Shahjehan | 15 | male
- Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
- Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
- Numair | 14 | male
- Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
- Ihsanullah | 16 | male
- Luqman | 12 | male
- Jannatullah | 13 | male
- Ismail | 12 | male
- Taseel Khan | 18 | male
- Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
- Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
- Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
- Alam Nabi | 11 | male
- Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
- Rahmatullah | 14 | male
- Abdus Samad | 17 | male
- Siraj | 16 | male
- Saeedullah | 17 | male
- Abdul Waris | 16 | male
- Darvesh | 13 | male
- Ameer Said | 15 | male
- Shaukat | 14 | male
- Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
- Salman | 12 | male
- Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
- Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
- Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
- Iftikhar | 17 | male
- Inayatullah | 15 | male
- Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
- Ihsanullah | 16 | male
- Luqman | 12 | male
- Jannatullah | 13 | male
- Ismail | 12 | male
- Abdul Waris | 16 | male
- Darvesh | 13 | male
- Ameer Said | 15 | male
- Shaukat | 14 | male
- Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
- Adnan | 16 | male
- Najibullah | 13 | male
- Naeemullah | 17 | male
- Hizbullah | 10 | male
- Kitab Gul | 12 | male
- Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
- Zabihullah | 16 | male
- Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
- Shabir | 15 | male
- Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
- Shafiullah | 16 | male
- Nimatullah | 14 | male
- Shakirullah | 16 | male
- Talha | 8 | male
- YEMEN
- Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
- Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
- Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
- Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
- Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
- Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
- Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
- Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
- Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
- Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
- Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
- Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
- Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
- Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
- Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
- Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
- Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
- Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
- Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
- Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
- Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
- AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
- Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
- Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
- Nasser Salim | 19
Thank you so much for this information, it is important that someone remember them, maybe we could do a monument to them, as they were killed with our tax dollars. Little candles for Peace.
ReplyDeleteOdile