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After Karen Aram's discussion about trying to move people by showing
them pictures of children harmed by US-supported wars, I found this:<br>
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<a
href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/where-is-outcry-over-children-killed-by-u-s-led-forces/"><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/where-is-outcry-over-children-killed-by-u-s-led-forces/">http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/where-is-outcry-over-children-killed-by-u-s-led-forces/</a></a><br>
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A September, 2015 article in a mainstream science magazine
(Scientific American), by a guy whom I'd known as mainstream science
writer (John Horgan). He appears to have a whole series of
anti-war articles in Sci Am over the last few years. Quoting from
this one:<br>
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<p>[...] Unfortunately, many people react to the killing of
children with a shrug or a cheer. Americans flocked to <em>American
Sniper</em>, which lionizes a soldier who, in the opening
scene, shoots an Iraqi boy and his mother. (See <a
href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/what-war-propaganda-like-8220-american-sniper-8221-reveals-about-us/">my
critique of the film here.</a>) When I object to the U.S.
military killing children, I often hear three counter-arguments.
Here they are, with my responses:</p>
<p><strong>Argument 1: Children are often killers themselves, whom
our troops kill in self-defense.</strong> This is the view
advanced implicitly in <em>American Sniper</em>. The sniper,
Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, shoots a boy who is threatening U.S.
soldiers with a bomb. The phenomenon of child warriors is all
too real. <a
href="https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/effects-of-conflict/six-grave-violations/child-soldiers/">According
to the United Nations</a>, “hundreds of thousands of children
are used as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world.” But
child soldiers are victims, who should if possible be rescued
and rehabilitated, not killed. Moreover, the vast majority of
children killed by U.S. forces are not suspected combatants.
They are “collateral damage” resulting from U.S. attacks on
adult targets.</p>
<p><strong>Argument 2. Our enemies kill children too.</strong> The
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram and other
militant groups have indeed committed atrocities against
children, <a
href="http://www.un.org/press/en/2015/sc11832.doc.htm">according
the United Nations</a>. But we abhor these groups, supposedly,
because we find their brutal treatment of civilians (among other
acts) inexcusable. Their behavior cannot excuse ours. Moreover,
when we commit atrocities, we provide ISIS and other groups with
a provocation and justification for their behavior. We should
set a moral example for militant groups, not stoop to their
behavior.</p>
<p><strong>Argument 3. We don’t kill children on purpose.</strong>
When presented with irrefutable evidence that its forces have
killed children or other civilians, the U.S. occasionally
apologizes (see below), while insisting that the deaths were
unintentional. But when our forces kill children over and over
again, claims that the killings are unintentional become hollow,
a cynical evasion of responsibility. We would be outraged if
American police, in attacks on suspected criminals, routinely
killed children who happened to be nearby. We should be equally
outraged when U.S. troops kill children in their operations.</p>
<p>Last November, for example, an air strike by the U.S.-led
alliance aimed at a suspected “explosives-making and storage
facility” in Syria “likely caused the deaths of two civilian
children,” <a
href="https://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210/CIVCAS/Harim%20City,%20Syria%20-%205-6%20Nov%2014/AR%2015-6%20Investigation%20-%20Harim%20Syria%20CIVCAS,%205-6%20Nov%2014.pdf">the
Pentagon has acknowledged</a>. One was a five year old girl,
Daniya Ali Al Haj Qaddour, who poses with her father, Ali Saeed
Al Haj Qaddoura, a suspected militant, in the photo above. <a
href="http://airwars.org/">Airwars.org</a> has posted <a
href="http://airwars.org/news/6-months-after-deadly-syrian-air-raid-centcom-finally-concedes-us-strike-killed-children/">a
video of Daniya and the other child killed in the attack here</a>.
Pentagon officials admit that the deaths of the two children
violate “international humanitarian law” and state that the
alliance should “ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”</p>
<p>At this point, many readers are no doubt thinking that war is a
messy, unpredictable business, which always ends up hurting
innocent people, such as children. Exactly. That is why war must
end.</p>
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