The Bomb that Turned Children into 44 Small Graves and More
Nour Rida
44 Yemeni kids on a school bus were jostling and laughing on their trip before a US-backed Saudi airstrike hit the bus and turned them into little corpses that rested in small graves.
The trip was supposed to be a graduation celebration from summer school; nonetheless the Gulf-coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia and fully supported by the US turned it into a moment of unspeakable shock.
In Afghanistan’s Kabul, the geography and tools are different but the case is similar. More than 50 young children, mostly girls, were killed in cold blood when a suicide bomber attacked Maw'ood Education Center in Shia-dominated neighborhood of western Kabul on Wednesday. They were high-school students preparing for their ‘Concours’ examination. The US-led war in Afghanistan has entered its 17th year with absolutely nothing but more killing and destruction. Terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS, who have been committing suicide attacks and bombings in Afghanistan have been receiving the funding and support of the US government; a fact that has been confirmed and declared out loud by several US officials.
Many heart-breaking stories have been emerging from both Yemen and Afghanistan, which however are not ‘headline material’ for the Western media.
I voted for a killer
According to sources, the bomb used by the Saudi-led coalition in the devastating attack on the school bus was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia. It was a 500-pound (227 kilogram) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defense contractors. Of course the US is not alone to blame. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have been the perpetrators of these crimes; however they could have not at all been able to proceed without Trump and his missiles.
Carolina, a US citizen working in NY City regrets voting for Trump. She says she did not vote for a president to kill innocent children.
“Every time I look at the heart-rending images of these Yemeni kids, seeing them in the video laughing and chanting and then an hour later shredded dead or badly injured and covered with blood, I think to myself “what a big mistake I did! I gave my vote to a foolish president who is thirsty for blood. These are little kids just like my daughter.”
Carolina, who comes from Middle Eastern origins and is aware of the situation in the Middle East, says the American people are largely unaware of the Yemeni crisis or other crises in the region.
“Innocent children are killed, not only children also civilians young and old. People’s homes are destroyed they even have to stay without shelter many times, but many people here generally do not have a clue about it!”
What is worse in her viewpoint is that Trump was promising to stop wars. “Surely I did not vote for a president who kills children, and I did not want to see blood on America’s hands.”
Caroline concludes “I am a mother, and I think all mothers, fathers, grandmothers and fathers at least realize how merciless this is. It is so painful, we all must rise and do something about this.”
The merciless Saudi-led war in Yemen — which has not only claimed at least 13,500 lives but triggered a humanitarian crisis in which some 20 million Yemenis, out of a nation of just 29 million, are scrambling for food and other basic necessities and as many as 900,000 people are suffering from cholera — is what it is today because of help from the United States.
Hold the US accountable or say no jokes
Samin, an activist who resides in Pakistan’s Lahore, has been visiting Afghanistan frequently for her academic researches.
The activist says that children must never be targets during wars. She noted that if the UN Security Council and international community are honest about their outcry, the first to be held responsibility is the United States.
According to news reports, the UN Security Council condemned the bombing as a "heinous and cowardly terrorist attack," saying that it "underlined the need to hold perpetrators, organizers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice."
Though, Samin said “this is an old ‘joke’ because no one will dare to stand in face of the US and hold it accountable. However, she thinks that with the ongoing violent actions, direct and proxy wars, and increasing aggression, the US is weaving its cocoon and chewing on itself.”
The school attacks seem to have accomplished one thing; force Western media which has been ignoring the conflict in Yemen to outcry the US-supported carnage of children. It should not have taken so long; images from the US-Saudi war on Yemen, the US war in Afghanistan, the Daesh war in Syria exist that could shake the coldest hearts. Still and unsurprisingly, Western and US media had been setting a blind eye to US and US-supported crimes across the region for long decades, with the aim of reaching their Eurocentric and supremacist goals.
Source: Al-Ahed news
