It is not enough for the Peace Laureate to murder American citizens
without charges, without trial and without warning; he must also murder
their children too -- in the same cowardly, cold-blooded fashion.
Last
week, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki -- an American teenager -- was ripped to
shreds by an American drone missile in Yemen. The boy, like his father,
Anwar al-Awlaki -- had not been charged with any crime whatsoever, much
less convicted and sentenced. So what was his offense? He missed his
father -- who had been in hiding from the Peace Laureate's publicly
stated intention to assassinate him -- and he went off to find him.
His
search took him into one of the areas of Yemen where there are groups
opposed to the murderous regime now controlling the country and
slaughtering its own citizens in cold blood -- with American weapons,
American money, and the full support of the Peace Laureate and his
peace-loving administration of peaceful peaceniks. People in such
regions -- not only in Yemen but all over the world -- are of course
subject to instant, agonizing death from the Peace Laureate's brave,
bold robot drones, guided by noble warriors nestled in cushioned chairs
behind fortress walls thousands of miles away.
And so a button
was pushed, and 16-year-old Abdulrahman -- and his 17-year-old cousin --
were turned into steaming lumps of coagulate gore by the drones of the
Peace Laureate. The Laureate's minions and satraps then spread the story
that the child was actually a grown man, "suspected" of being a
"militant." It was, of course, an arrant and deliberate lie, but it did
its work. The first -- and only -- thing the public at large heard about
this murder was that yet another dirty terrorist raghead had bitten the
dust, and so big fat what?
"To kill a teenager is just unbelievable, really, and they claim that he is an al-Qaeda militant. It's nonsense," said Nasser al-Awlaki, a former Yemeni agriculture minister who was Anwar al-Awlaki's father and the boy's grandfather, speaking in a phone interview from Sanaa on Monday. "They want to justify his killing, that's all."
The teenager, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen
who was born in Denver in 1995, and his 17-year-old Yemeni cousin were
killed in a U.S. military strike that left nine people dead in
southeastern Yemen. ...
Nasser al-Awlaki said the family decided
to issue a statement after reading some U.S. news reports that described
Abdulrahman as a militant in his twenties. The family urged journalists
and others to visit a Facebook memorial page for Abdulrahman.
"Look
at his pictures, his friends, and his hobbies," the statement said.
"His Facebook page shows a typical kid. A teenager who paid a hefty
price for something he never did and never was." The pictures on the
Facebook page show a smiling kid out and about in the countryside and
occasionally hamming it up for the camera. Abdulrahman left the United
States with his father in 2002.
Nasser al-Awlaki said Abdulrahman
was in the first year of secondary school when he left Sanaa to find
his father. He wrote a note to his mother, saying he missed his father
and wanted to see him. The teenager traveled to the family's tribal home
in southern Yemen, but Anwar al-Awlaki was killed Sep. 30 in Yemen's
northern Jawf province, about 90 miles east of the capital. "He went
from here without my knowledge," Nasser al-Awlaki said. "We would not
allow him to go if we know because he is a small boy." He said his
grandson, after hearing about his father's death, had decided to return
to Sanaa.
The American boy went off to find his father. Upon learning that
his father had been killed by the Peace Laureate, he tried to go back
home to his family. But he stopped to have a meal with some men --
perhaps friends of his father? Perhaps "militants"? Perhaps neither? We
cannot know, because the Peace Laureate and his minions do not discuss
their arbitrary killings of people without charges or trial.
So
Abdulrahman was blown to bits. The "soldier" who pushed the button or
squeezed the joystick that fired the missile got up from his comfortable
chair and got into his comfortable car and drove to his comfortable
home, where -- who knows? -- he might have had a delicious meal with his
wife and kids, then later kicked back for a little R&R with the Wii.
The peaceful Peace Laureate went out on the campaign trail, seeking to
extend his mission of peace for another term. And the regime he supports
in Yemen with peaceful weapons and peaceful money and peaceful pearls
of wisdom about peace went on killing its own citizens.
Methinks the Peace Laureate, long derided by some for his youthful callowness, a dearth of proper gravitas,
is growing into his imperial role more and more with each passing day.
The outright, open murder of an imperial citizen -- followed by the
completely gratuitous slaughter of the victim's son -- has the authentic
ring of ancient Rome about it.
That's how they did it in the high, palmy days of the Caesars; that's how we do it today. Everything old is new again. Ave, Peacenik!
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