Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Pelosi: Willing to "Protect" Syrian Children To Death



It's hard to tell which of these two is worse.


Whenever the ruling elite wants to engage in another bout of humanitarian slaughter, it will have its media auxiliaries soften up the public by barraging it with images of innocent people – particularly children – who are suffering and dying. Every “humanitarian” war makes those images go away. Children are still being mangled and murdered, of course – but those who control the state-aligned media are no longer interested in showing them.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently deployed the “It’s for the children” trope in a debate that she had – and lost – with her five-year-old grandson over the impending war with Syria. Since the child has not yet been processed through the government mind-laundry, he retained both his native intelligence and his natural impatience for obvious evasion. He also displayed a more mature understanding of ethics than his grandmother.

According to Pelosi’s account of the conversation, the child asked her if she favored war in Syria. Seeking refuge in circumlocution, Pelosi tried to brush off the question by replying, “We’re not talking about war; we’re talking about action.” The child, who apparently knew that the “action” being discussed would entail killing people, persisted through Pelosi’s persiflage: Did she support war with Syria? Pelosi again tried to deflect the question, this time by turning it back on the child by asking what he would do.

“I think no war,” was his reported reply. 

In desperation, Pelosi unleashed the most potent weapon in her rhetorical arsenal – the “Bomb-the-children-to-save-the children” argument.

“I said, `Well, I generally agree with that, but you know, they’ve killed hundreds of children there,’” Pelosi recalled in a brief statement to reporters on the White House lawn. “And he said, `Were these children in the United States?’ And I said, `No, but they’re children wherever they are.’”

America’s political class is thickly populated with thinly educated people, and in that dismal company Nancy Pelosi has always distinguished herself through her sheer stupidity. She is so incurably dense that she shared this story in the belief that it offered a compelling display of wisdom – rather than the pitiable spectacle of a policymaker losing a debate over geopolitics to her five-year-old grandson. 


That child, unlike his famous grandmother, instinctively drilled down to a question she and her comrades cannot answer: Quo warranto? By what supposed authority would the US government make war on Syria to deal with atrocities committed against children living in that country? 

Pelosi is famously disdainful of the idea that the U.S. Constitution imposes limits of any kind on federal action. Her platitudinous response to her grandson’s insightful and incisive question seems to assume that the US government has universal jurisdiction over mistreatment of children everywhere. One unspoken corollary is that the same government has unqualified authority to abuse and slaughter children in order to achieve its objectives.

At least for now, Syria seems to be the geographic limit of Pelosi’s exquisite sensitivity regarding the suffering of children overseas.  Her concern crested just to the west of Iraq, where more than a million children have died from violence inflicted by the government that has employed Pelosi since 1987.

No recorded examples exist of Pelosi expressing anguish over the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children who perished in anguish from starvation and disease as a result of the US-inflicted embargo that lasted from 1991 to 2003. Pelosi’s silence about that atrocity tacitly ratifies the assessment of her fellow humanitarian warmonger, Madeleine Albright, who blithely told 60 Minutes that the extermination of a half-million or more Iraqi children was a suitable price to pay in order to “punish” Saddam Hussein.

 
Pelosi has likewise been silent about the ongoing horrors experienced by the children of Fallujah, an Iraqi city that was pulverized by the US military in 2004 as retaliation for the killing of a handful of Blackwater mercenaries.  That onslaught included widespread use of chemical munitions in the form of white phosphorous rounds and ammunition made with depleted uranium. Those, too, are chemical weapons, unless the relevant sections of the periodic table have been revised to suit the interests of the Exceptional Nation. 

The collective punishment of Fallujah for defying the illegal occupation of Iraq was an atrocity of Stalinist magnitude, and that punishment continues today as the city witnesses an unprecedented increase in the rate of pediatric cancer and birth defects, such as spina bifida, heart problems, and inexplicable deformities. Medical researchers believe that this is a result of persistent elevated levels of lead, mercury, and uranium from the onslaught. 

A scene from "liberated" Fallujah.
It appears that Fallujah’s victims constitute another exception to Pelosi’s axiom that
“children are children wherever they are.” The same is true of Pakistani, Yemeni, and Afghan children who have been annihilated through US drone strikes. For Pelosi they are small lives, of little consequence.

Not a syllable of condemnation has escaped Pelosi’s lips regarding her president’s murder of 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was obliterated by a drone-fired missile just weeks after Mr. Obama murdered his father, Anwar al-Awlaki. 

If Abdul al-Awlaki had been a Syrian teenager killed by the government of Bashar al-Assad, Pelosi might have taken notice of the crime. When committed by her Dear Leader, however, such extra-judicial killings are considered commendable by Pelosi, who doesn’t think that the Regime needs even to acknowledge killing U.S. citizens.

“People just want to be protected,” warbled Pelosi when asked about summary execution of US citizens by drone strikes. “And I saw that when we were fighting them on surveillance, the domestic surveillance. People just want to be protected. [They’ll say] `You go out there and do it. I’ll criticize you, but I want to be protected.’”

Pelosi’s logic – if that word can be tortured into applying here – dictates that it is sometimes necessary to "fight" Americans to "protect" them -- even if it means "protecting" them to death. That’s a serviceable summation of her position regarding Syria: She’s willing to bomb Syrian children in order to protect them, too. Although Pelosi’s views won’t withstand the scrutiny of her five-year-old grandson, they do display a certain deranged consistency. 

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Dum spiro, pugno!

16 comments:

C.H.Featherstone said...

And kill them in order to save them...

Anonymous said...

I wonder if, in the tradition of Orwell, Pelosi said to her grandson "All children are equal, but some children are more equal than others."

That would have made a better title, Will!

Keith said...

Typo:
"At least for now, Syria seems to be the geographic limit of Pelosi’s exquisite sensitivity regarding the suffering of children overseas. Her concern crested just to the west of Iraq,"

presumably it should read:
"just to the west of Syria, in Iraq,"

William N. Grigg said...

Keith, my point is that Pelosi is supposedly obsessing over horrible things in Syria, which is located just to the west of Iraq. I'm sorry I expressed myself so poorly.

Anonymous said...

The "Exceptional Nation" is making me exceptionally sick to my stomach. I can't travel to another country anymore without feeling utter shame.

Recently, a New Zealander asked me "Are you American? You sound American."

As my eyes wildly glanced around, seemingly searching for lost words, I stammered "Ah....ah...No. NO! I'm....ah....Canadian. Yeah, that's it! I'm Canadian!"

I couldn't even look him in the eye.

What else could I say?

I couldn't tell him that I was a 'Conehead from France'. That line's been used already.

Anyhoo, great article as usual Will!

-Rorri W, from ah...from....he,he (nervous laughter)somewhere around the area I guess...yeah...ah...you know....um....in space and time and stuff like that.

Whew!

MoT said...

Pelosi is always ready to shoot first and ask questions, if at all, long afterwards. Just look at what she's said before and you know she's just another evil pan handling stooge with her hand out.

Gil said...

The U.S. didn't "murder one million Iraqis" for two simple reasons.

1. Saddam Hussein was the one holding out on the U.N. sanctions. Had he agreed to the conditions and was still facing the sanctions then the U.N. members would be in the wrong.

2. There no proof any one died under the sanctions that otherwise would not have. There's no proof of one million people missing outside of Libertarian/Socialist assertions. The known death rate for that period was on par (if not less) with a similar country not facing sanctions.

On the other hand, Madeleine Albright long since apologised for that statement noting she fell for a loaded question by the interviewer.

willb said...

Pelosi is proof positive that our fedgov has been taken over
by space invading lizard beings wearing human skin costumes.

In fact, California's 8th congressional district is lizard
headquarters. I know this because I went there and saw them.
Sure, they look like people but as they say, "If it quacks like
a duck or votes like a lizard then it's one of the two." and
they weren't quacking.

William N. Grigg said...

"The U.S. didn't "murder one million Iraqis for two simple reasons.

1. Saddam Hussein was the one holding out on the U.N. sanctions.

2. There no proof any one died under the sanctions that otherwise would not have. There's no proof of one million people missing outside of Libertarian/Socialist assertions. The known death rate for that period was on par (if not less) with a similar country not facing sanctions.


Sanctions were just one element of the equation. We have to include the Iran-Iraq war, which was abetted and prolonged by Washington; the Desert Storm massacre ("war" isn't a suitable expression) -- and the subsequent sanctions; and the unambiguously illegal war of aggression and ensuing occupation that began in 2003.

There is abundant evidence (whether it constitutes "proof," apparently, is a function of one's ideology) that child death rates within the area affected by sanctions escalated dramatically. (Among the Kurds, who were largely exempt, there was actually some improvement).

Assuming that Albright "fell for a loaded question," why should she benefit from our sympathy?

She was being accused of complicity in a monumental act of state terrorism -- that is, killing tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in an attempt to impose political change in Iraq. It's not as if she wasn't sufficiently quick on her feet to say: "Your premise is wrong and appalling -- we would never do such a hideous thing!" Instead, she calmly endorsed the idea that she and the people she represented were (and remain) perfectly capable of such actions, while defending them as morally justified.

Luton Ian said...

For info;

Git, trolled the mises daily (and Cafe Hayek) comments for several years, during which time, it showed no ability to understand or to reason.

it will instead work hard to misunderstand, misconstrue twist or straw man any libertarian insight.

It doesn't matter how sound a logical refutation is made of git's confusion, you can be sure it will be back with exactly the same confusions in the next comment.

It doesn't visit libertarian sites to debate, but to disrupt, distract, waste time and annoy.

Gil said...

At least the West had the right idea in Africa. People there want to go to war? That's okay, we won't intervene, we'll happily stand by and watch the darkies kill one another (no oil fields there).

But I guess it's all about that any U.S. involvement is a government action thus the U.S. military can't calculate who deserves to die and who doesn't. Thus the Syrians who actually fight on the front line have a strong incentive to make sure they calculate the battle properly and as such must be left alone.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

Washington, DC, where I used to live, is overrun with monsters. David Icke maintains they are really shapeshifting reptile lizards. Even if they aren't reptiles, one can fully understand his gut revulsion which prompts such a speculation.... Can these really be living, breathing human beings, or are they rather some invasive alien species with an insatiable thirst for human blood? The political class and the corporate class in America certainly show little evidence of their ability to feel any human or other emotions, beyond those of masticating, defecating, fornicating and procreating. In other words, all these creatures care about is eating, shitting, fucking and birthing more of their kind. What then can we expect of them? Perhaps it is time to bring out a giant can of Raid and spray them all, like an infestation of cockroaches. Now, THAT is a chemical fumigation the whole world could heartily and joyfully endorse.

Lemuel Gulliver said...

PS: Friends, please pray that Obama and the Israel-Firsters do not attack Syria. My insider contacts assure me that if that happens, it is assuredly going to escalate into something the whole world will regret for a very, very long time. For those of you with curiosity to understand where all this is coming from, please Google "THE ODED YINON PLAN" and read some of the links, most importantly one that gives you the plan itself and not just commentary. There you will see laid out for you, 30 years ago in 1982, a road map of everything which has happened in the last 10 years. Better yet, it tells you what is coming next, and the reasons for all of it. Enjoy your research, and don't forget to pray for us all.

methylamine said...

The "Gil" is a government-paid shill who spouts the most execrable inanities on libertarian sites everywhere.

He's a constant pest on one of my favorite hang-outs, EPAutos.com

It never, ever debates; when questioned it devolves to ever-greater depths of tortured logic, fallacies, and non-sequiturs.

It's incorrigible.

And it's infinitely patient.

As a software engineer, I'm fairly certain it's not an AI...unless they're devoting Blue Gene-level AI to shilling. It's just a dedicated servant of the State...and a pestilent nuisance.

Don't feed it, don't respond to it. It's a psychic vampire; it's boxing against vapor; it's a gelatin punching bag. You'll exhaust yourself with anger trying to "convince" it.

It's the perfect example of Cass Sunstein's program of "cognitive infiltration".

They KNOW they're losing the infowar; but they have endless amounts of your money to spend hiring these things.

Follow Solzhenitsyn's maxim in re the State:
Don't believe them, don't fear them, don't ask anything of them.

Gentlemen, we are at a turning point in history every bit as profound as the Reformation five hundred years ago. I'm seeing an awakening. Keep pushing, Will, and everyone else who loves liberty--Ozymandias is toppling, help it along and we'll usher in the next wave of human freedom and prosperity.

We're shrugging off our parasites, the insanely narcissistic sociopaths who would call themselves our "leaders".

Mr. Mcgranor said...

I refuse any premise that is a rationale for the New World Order. Whether a secularized dictator, or devout Mohammedan -- i say best wishes. May one-world dreams fall either way.

Burrow Owl said...

Nancy Pelosi is a skidmark on the underwear of humanity.

'Nuff said.