“This particular mass killing is unlikely to get much attention in the U.S. due to (1) the election-season obsession with horse-race analysis and pressing matters such as the size of Donald Trump’s hands; (2) widespread Democratic indifference to the killing of foreigners where there’s no partisan advantage to be had against the GOP from pretending to care; (3) the invisibility of places like Somalia and the implicit devaluing of lives there; and (4) the complete normalization of the model whereby the U.S. president kills whomever he wants, wherever he wants, without regard for any semblance of law, process, accountability, or evidence.”
This is why elections matter. Ever since I have been old enough to be politically aware, the government of my country has seen fit to wage unlimited war wherever and whenever it wants, regardless of logic, efficacy, ethics, or legality, under the guise of a “War on Terror.”
A president as kind-hearted and pious as George W. Bush authorized the use of torture and domestic surveillance. He invaded and occupied two countries, one with an entirely fabricated justification, and directly caused over a decade of civil war and hundreds of thousands of deaths. He destabilized an entire region of the world and drove millions of people from their homes by his recklessness.
A president as mild mannered and educated as Obama has personally authorized hundreds of extra-judicial assassinations and executions each year. He has heavily bombed seven Islamic countries with whom the United States is not at war and where it has no legal jurisdiction. He has downplayed the civilian death toll by classifying as a “militant” any male of military age who is killed by the US government, while deliberately targeting civilian first responders and family members of victims with a “double tap” policy.
Say what you will about the policies or legacies of Bush or Obama’s presidencies; both are widely regarded as basically decent men, in and of themselves. And yet this is the role America has played in the world under their guidance. We call it the War on Terror, but it is really a War of Terror. We are the ones who destroy families and cause entire countries to live in fear. We are the ones who kill without trial, without a declaration of war, without warning, and without remorse.
So when you watch the presidential race, and you see angry, avaricious men who yearn for violence, who boast of how they will “bomb the shit” out of their enemies, how they will make America more powerful than it has ever been, and how they will use that power ruthlessly, stop. Back away. Remember how much violence the American government can commit with decent men in charge, and be very afraid of what it could do with a bad man at the helm.
Where the Fire-drake Swings 