OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: MLK Jr. & Acceptable Killing of Children by Air Strkes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia

Associated Press, July 14, “Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says American troops can leave any time they want." One of his top aides accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights. Media silence.

The great proud American soul is EMPTY of compassion for our foreign brothers and sisters, and their beautiful children 'in harms way' of America's armed forces - armed forces mercilessly firing away, often wildly in fear for themselves as hated occupiers.

Extermination by air strike is safer for U.S. troops in the alleyways of Baghdad. But pity the poor conscious stricken U.S. veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress for having witnessed Iraqi children’s death and suffering.

Published July 12, by the Independent, United Kingdom, “A Dead Iraqi is Just Another Dead Iraqi… You Know, So What? - Interviews with US veterans show for the first time the pattern of brutality in Iraq - in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.”

…”planting AK47 rifles beside corpses to make it appear that they had died in combat. …“a military convoy ran over a 10-year-old boy and his three donkeys, killing them all - your order is that you never stop.”… “You rip him out of bed in front of his wife. You put him up against the wall …then you go into a room and you tear the room to shreds. We always got the wrong house.” …”I had to go tell this woman that her husband was actually dead. We gave her money, we gave her, like, 10 crates of water, we gave the kids, I remember, maybe it was soccer balls and toys. We just didn’t really know what else to do.” …”we’re approaching, and they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, cause it’s doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it… The family is sitting right there, with three little children and a mom and a dad, horrified.” …”[The photo] was very graphic… one soldier has got a spoon. He’s reaching in to scoop out some of the guy’s brain, looking at the camera and smiling.” …”The car was approaching what was in my opinion a very poorly marked checkpoint… and probably didn’t even see the soldiers… The guys got spooked and decided it was a possible threat, so they shot up the car. And they [the bodies] literally sat in the car for the next three days while we drove by them.” …”The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population”

“I just remember thinking, ‘I JUST BROUGHT TERROR TO SOMEONE UNDER THE AMERICAN FLAG.’” “I felt like there was this enormous reduction in my compassion for people. The only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with, and everybody else be damned.”

Even less compassionate is the ‘what-me-worry?’ attitude of Americans happily going about self-indulgent lives in bland disregard of citizen accountability for the violent acts their government - not taking seriously, government warnings that they and their children are now the targets of a burgeoning al Qaeda and who knows what other terror blowback groups in the future. They have abnegated even the slightest action for their families own safety and are not concerned about the hate being engendered all over the world by American indifference to the killing of civilians by U.S. military.

The great proud American soul is EMPTY of compassion for our foreign brothers and sisters, and their beautiful children 'in harms way' of America's armed forces - armed forces mercilessly firing away, often wildly in fear for themselves, the hated occupiers.

Without a Martin Luther King to make them wake up and take stock of themselves, Americans have sunk, in the main, to be a self-preoccupied and selfish race, frivolous in manner and vacuous in regard for rest of humanity.

We listen to bragging about free speech, yet Americans are speechlessness about anything important for society at home or abroad. Mr. and Mrs. America are only concerned with THEIR shit. What's the price of oil at the pump? Who won today's ball game? What's on sale? Their OWN health insurance and discount drug plan.

Their ministers, priests and rabbis, unlike Martin Luther King, are largely silent on moral conflict out in the killing fields, and if they speak of abhorrence in their sermons, that abhorrence is politely extinguished in the minds of the parishioners once they step outside. Should someone one break out from the ranks of strict self-interest and bring up moral responsibility regarding permanent war, rules of social etiquette will quickly but silently reassert themselves to the embarrassment that someone upset about the enormous indigenous death toll in U.S. occupied nations.

This writer was a kid during the great depression when Americans in general were still not entirely politically speechless. We got two school holidays thanks to the high esteem our nation held the lives led by Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Maybe sounds corny today, but along with the warm feeling of gratitude for the two days we could have fun instead of school, we also felt some noticeable call to make our spine straight and resolve never tell to lie all year in the name of father of our country, and to take pride in always respecting everyone's freedom, inspired by the president who freed our enslaved brethren and implanted this theme in our American historical heritage. (Back then there was still a lot of innocence in childhood.)

Now only one American's birthday is celebrated with a national holiday. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reaching up from his grave of martyrdom grants us a one-day holiday from work and school, and most will have the idea of straightening our spine like King's spine was straight about racial equality.

But THOSE of us who bitterly remember that King was shot down exactly one year after denouncing cruel U.S. capitalism and its murderous wars in and on the Third World, we make our spine straight to act in the name of Rev. King’s second fight as well, namely, the fight to protect humanity and saving the world from the rapaciousness of corporate government's genocidal foreign policy of war for resources and selfish trade policies causing economic suffering for the majority of mankind.

In the August Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate most of the candidates hands flew up in hasty knee jerk reaction at the question, “Would you give the order for a missile strike to take out Osama bin Ladin or a top al Qaeda leader if innocent civilians would be hit raise your hands.” How would these presidential candidates like to be gunned down by law enforcers shooting into a crowd to get their man? Whew! Another amoral U.S. President to look forward to. It is so to be expected. Another Commander-in-Chief with his (or her) own private CIA for criminal covert acts while Congress and the courts look the other way.

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