By Opio Sokoni, J.D.
A child is going to say her prayers and while she is counting sheep or goats or camels, a bomb is going to make the loudest noise she has ever heard. Nights before, the bombs may have not been as loud. They hit other areas; but not this time. This poor little girl will probably live disfigured for the rest of her life. The next morning, she is going to find out that many of her friends lay at the bottom of rubble. Some alive and some will die - lucky enough to escape the horrible pain. The voice of right and reason will be too soft to hear. No one can save the children of a small country from the damaging might of the powerful. Just a few years ago, people in that village heard beautiful speeches from the man who orders the bombs. They thought that when he took over as president he would bring light to the darkness. But now they get to feel the power of tricks. Politics as usual this time includes their destruction. There is no more hope for the father who is running down the streets with his badly battered little girl.
The people who would have once spoke out against this are still on the honey moon that made history. The idea of the first African American president is too big to fail. The resolve to speak out against your brother in power is weakened by the adoration. But to know about the senseless bloodshed usually strengthens the decent person to speak out. The harm that is produced by the decision of Barack Obama to bomb Libya is as powerful as the silence of the groups that usually screams the clarion call against human rights abuses. The verses, “study to show yourself approved” and “harden not your heart” are useless verses in such a climate. Furthermore, the problem with speaking out about it now, after such a long delay, is that the morality is no longer there. Libya has said that it wants to talk – more bombs. It says that it wants to negotiate – more bombs. They say they want to have free and open elections and still more bombs. It reminds me of a story I saw on television few years ago.
A teenage girl was working in a drive through window of a McDonalds. An officer comes through and makes an order. He is served and is on his merry way. A few minutes later, the cop pulls up to the window again. But this time he is angry. He tells the girl that he got short-changed a few dollars. The girl rechecks and tells him he is mistaken. The powerful officer begins yelling at the girl to give him his change. She gets into an argument that many of us have gotten into when our orders are messed up. The officer gets mad and comes into the fast food place – badge on his chest and gun on his waist. He tells the girl to come with him. She refuses and tells him that she wants to call her mother. She is a minor. He refuses to allow her to make the call. Her manager is powerless to help her. The cop and the girl are both heated. However, the big officer, his hands shaking mad, pulls out his can of mace. He sprays the girl in the face. She lets out blood curdling screams and now begins to plead for mercy. The officer then drags her out of the restaurant saying to her, “No, it’s too late.” It probably doesn’t matter that the girl was black and the officer was white. Just as it probably matters even less that Obama is black and Libya is an African country. However, children bearing the harm of senseless power do matter. Is it right to continue to rain down force on someone who pleads to the contrary?
The problem with those who will support this action is that there will be another president in power one day. This president may be as hated as W. Bush – give or take a few centrists. They will not have the passion to speak out against an unjust, unprovoked attack on another country. Passion dies when a person has gone down the wrong road for too long. Moral outrage is placed on auto check when a person decides to support wrong-headed politics for loyalty sake. So, we toughen up and refuse to make the right decision in the face of clear wrong. We remain happily vague and/or ignorant. NATO is powerful. And, what the average person must come to terms with is the question of being wrong. What if we are wrong? The world knows that nothing will happen to correct this wrong. No one will bring charges against the U.N. for crimes against humanity. Only leaders of small, powerless countries that find themselves in conflict with the U.S. and NATO get to go before the world court. Nothing happens to the powerful countries that breaks laws. They only answer to those of us who make them powerful. Too many good people, however, got it wrong this time. This means that more innocent children will die and the bulk of the justifications will come from human rights activists and progressives. This is a sad day – but who cares? We won’t see the mangled little bodies in the so-called free and independent U.S. press. And, the Reagan conservatives are agreeable to these types of brutal acts.
At the end of the program that showed the story about the fast food worker and the cop, we find out that the little girl did not short change the officer after all. And, nothing was legally done to the abusive officer involved. The high school student had no good people to come to her aid – before or after the abuse. Libya’s children may be in the same boat.
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