Suffer the Little Children
By George Capaccio
June 28, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - In the Gospels, the disciples of Jesus complain about folks who bring their kids with them to receive his blessings. But Jesus is not somebody who shuns the company of children. In response to his followers’ disapproval, he says, perhaps with the snap of indignation in his voice, “Suffer the little children and don’t stop them from coming to me. For the kingdom of Heaven was made for such as these.” (Or words to that effect.)
Thank God people here and around the world are righteously outraged by the Trump Administration’s most recent descent into fascistic horror—separating children from their parents at the US-Mexican border and dispatching them to detention centers with no assurance they will ever be reunited with their families. A perfect example of cruel and unusual punishment for the sin of seeking asylum from the very violence and chaos the US had no small role in instigating in Central American countries.
I don’t know which is worse: ripping apart immigrant families and imprisoning even little children or enabling the Saudi-led coalition to attack and possibly destroy Yemen’s sole remaining lifeline—the port of Hodeidah—despite the imminent threat of starvation hanging over the heads of Yemen’s civilian population. The children as in most conflict zones bear the brunt of suffering in this three-year-old war between Yemen’s Houthi rebels (officially known as Ansar Allah) on the one hand, and the coalition and Yemeni government on the other. As anyone following this story is aware, we are providing intelligence and targeting logistics, and mid-air refueling of Saudi and United Arab Emirates fighter jets. For good measure, the Trump Administration in April authorized the sale of 1.3 billon dollars worth of weaponry to Saudi Arabia in order to “improve Saudi Arabia’s capability to meet current and future threats and provide greater security for its border regions and critical infrastructure,” according to Pentagon officials. The weapons include “100 155 mm M109 Howitzers, 180 .50-caliber M2 heavy machine guns, eight Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data Systems. …” Between 2011 and 2015, Saudi Arabia purchased 9.5% of US arms exports.
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What a bonanza of killing machines for Saudi
Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister
Mohammed bin Salman, who met with Trump
during the former’s so-called “goodwill
tour” of the US earlier this year. Never one
to miss an opportunity to display his
concern for American workers, Trump duly
noted that “A lot of people are at work”
thanks to Saudi Arabia’s purchase of “the
finest military equipment anywhere in the
world.” The “people” of course are the
defense contractors who, as always, stand to
reap enormous profits from the business of
killing.
In Yemen the “business of killing” has been
amped up by the influx of US weapons and US
support of the Saudi onslaught. Though all
sides in the conflict have committed war
crimes and human rights violations, the US
and its European allies, including Spain,
Italy, France, and UK, are complicit in the
continuation and intensification of the war.
The bombing of civilian and military
targets, and the Saudi-led coalition’s
severe restrictions on the delivery of food,
fuel, and medical supplies have resulted in
inconceivable suffering for the Yemeni
people. The UN calls it the worlds’ worst
humanitarian crisis. And driving it are the
geopolitical calculations of the world’s
foremost superpower for whom safeguarding
its relationship with Saudi Arabia trumps
any humanitarian concerns. After all, Saudi
Arabia may be the biggest and wealthiest
funder of terrorist groups in the Middle
East. But it’s also a major player in the
politics of oil. “Protecting Saudi Arabia
and other Persian Gulf producers has been a
cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy for
decades,” according to the Council on
Foreign Relations.
So the killing continues. And the children
of Yemen, like the children of Iraq, Syria,
and Afghanistan are paying the price of
imperialist realpolitick, for which ethical,
moral, or simple humanitarian considerations
are more often considered obstacles to the
application of force and military muscle to
resolve international disputes. As a witness
to the effects of sanctions on Iraq’s
economy, I have seen the withered bodies of
little children suffering from extreme
malnutrition and water-borne diseases. Most
of them had scant chance of surviving in
hospitals that once possessed first-rate
medical equipment and sufficient resources
to deal with pediatric illness, including
various forms of cancer. The fate of these
children was the consequence of decisions
made in Washington in its drive to force
regime change in Iraq by depressing the
country’s economy and causing a profound
humanitarian crisis.
It appears that nothing has changed, at
least in the manner in which the US wields
power and enforces its own brand of
political expedience absent any concern for
commonly accepted standards of right and
wrong. From the standpoint of Donald Trump
and his toadies, it makes perfect sense to
lock up little children after taking them
away from their parents and to ignore or at
least discount the generational trauma and
suffering this policy is causing. In the
same vein, providing logistical and
diplomatic support for Saudi Arabia’s war
against the Houthi fighters of Yemen (whom
the Saudis consider proxies of its arch
foe—Iran). And of course, to stem Iran’s
growing influence in the Middle East, the
people of Yemen are expendable in the eyes
of the US, Britain, and other arms suppliers
in Europe, and countries in the Gulf and
Africa allied with Saudi Arabia.
When I look at photographs taken in Yemen’s
hospitals of children suffering from
malnutrition and what would normally be
easily treatable diseases, my heart recoils.
The sight of these emaciated children takes
me back to pediatric wards in Iraq during
the period of economic sanctions. This is
what inhumanity looks like. This is what it
means to deliberately prevent children from
receiving all the blessings of life to which
they are entitled simply by having been
born. These children, whether the offspring
of parents in Yemen or of parents from
Central American countries, deserve to be
embraced, to be loved, to be treated with
all the compassion and kindness the human
heart is capable of giving.
In Yemen, the statistics tell a
heartbreaking story. A recent report from
Oxfam International Yemen’s focuses on the
humanitarian crisis caused by the ongoing
conflict:
More than 14,600 civilian deaths and
injuries
Over three million people internally
displaced from the bombing and fighting
Twenty-two million people (75% of the
population) in need of emergency aid, “the
greatest number in any country in the
world.”
Seventeen million people (60% of the
population) facing food insecurity and
malnutrition
Eight million people on the brink of famine
The “worst ever cholera outbreak” with more
than 1 million cases and over 2,200 deaths
from this epidemic
The fighting has “massively” disrupted
Yemen’s food supply, of which 90% was
imported even before the war began. Because
of attacks on essential civilian
infrastructure, the country is barely able
to provide basic services like health care
and a reliable supply of potable water,
thanks in part to US support.
Since the implementation of Trump’s “zero
tolerance” regarding immigrants and asylum
seekers crossing our southern border with
Mexico, a growing number of Americans have
been moved to publicly protest this policy
and to call for its repeal in the name of
fairness, justice, and fundamental human
decency. In a recent Tweet, Ralph Nader, a
quintessential guiding light in matters
concerning civic virtue, responds to former
First Ladies’ criticism of “zero tolerance”:
Would be nice if Laura Bush and Michelle
Obama had expressed similar heartfelt
concern for the tens of thousands of
children killed or seriously maimed by the
wars of their husbands in Iraq, Afghanistan
and elsewhere.
Wouldn’t it also be nice if Laura and
Michelle opened their hearts to the children
of Yemen and called for an end to all arms
sales to Saudi Arabia, a negotiated
settlement to the conflict, and a trial by
the International Criminal Court for the
perpetrators of war crimes and crimes
against humanity in Yemen. Personally, I
don’t expect the spouses of lawbreakers like
George Bush and Barack Obama to raise much
of a stink about the crimes their husbands
committed while in office. But I do hope
that well-meaning American citizens, deeply
disturbed by the unnecessary suffering
inflicted on parents and children from
Central America, begin to connect the dots.
To my mind, the humanitarian crisis on our
border with Mexico and the humanitarian
crisis in Yemen may not be one in the same.
But both are expressions of an identical
absence of compassion and a willingness to
deny the humanity of those deemed
“different” for one reason or another.
Thinking about the history of this country,
I imagine a long “trail of tears” beginning
with our Puritan forebears and their wars
against native people, extending through
centuries of slavery, the American Indian
wars of the 1800s, the forced displacement
of Eastern Woodland Indians from their
traditional homelands in the Southeast to
the so-called “Indian Territory” west of the
Mississippi, the Philippine-American war
(1899-1902), the world wars of the 20th
century right up to our present attacks
against predominantly Muslim nations and the
denial of human rights to the people seeking
refuge in our country.
Suffer the little children. Let them live.
Give them food, clothing, shelter. Give them
love. Not bombs and bullets. Not the cruelty
of sanctions. Not the grim prospect of war
without end.
George Capaccio is a writer and activist
living in Arlington, MA. During the years of
U.S.- and UK-enforced sanctions against
Iraq, he traveled there numerous times,
bringing in banned items, befriending
families in Baghdad, and deepening his
understanding of how the sanctions were
impacting civilians. His email is Capaccio.G@gmail.com
He welcomes comments and invites readers to
visit his website:
www.georgecapaccio.com
Note:
During the decade of the1830s, the federal government forced the removal of Eastern Woodlands Indians from their traditional homelands in the Southeast region of the U.S. An estimated 100,000 indigenous people, including Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek, were compelled to walk thousands of miles to so-called Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. About 15,000 people died from disease, exposure, or starvation. The collective suffering of those who made the journey west or died along the way is known as the Trail of Tears.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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