Making war on children

Today on Facebook I saw a picture of an eight-year-old Palestinian boy surrounded by five or six big, burly Israeli soldiers, one pointing a machine gun at the child from perhaps two feet away (actually, if he’d discharged it, he’d probably have killed several of his fellows as well as the poor child). The image of that tear-streaked, terrified face will haunt me forever. The problem of what we as adults do to children is not confined to the southern border of the States.

That is not to say that equally haunting images don’t come from the “camps” into which ICE and Homeland Security have forced “alien” children (no child is alien, for Pete’s sake)—the young boy, about six, clinging to the wire cage while his face is distorted with tears, the terrified children being yanked from their mothers’ arms.

Man’s inhumane cruelty to his fellow man is as old as civilization. Unfortunately, we have not progressed beyond wars, fought mostly for religion and/or greed. I grieve over what men and women do to each other and have done throughout history.

But never in modern history, as far a I know, have adults been so callous in their attitude toward children. And, of course, what’s happening on the Mexico/Texas border is more in our face than the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict, which is in itself an atrocity—don’t get me started on it. My rage for the time is pointed at Trump, Sessions, and ICE.

I am sick to death of people who blithely say, “The law is the law. We are a nation of laws.” Or who argue those “illegal” immigrants could stay in Mexico, where, of course, they would not really be safe from the long arm of gangs and terror from their own countries, let alone those in Mexico. Helpless and penniless, they are easy prey for cartels. Some may have relatives in our country who would shelter them—currently their children, taken from them, are often sent to such relatives.

As for a nation of laws, don’t tell me that when our temporary president flaunts every law written and does so with impunity, supported by the weak spines in the Republican party. We are a nation of laws when it suits the leaders to apply the law; otherwise forget it. Surely, somewhere, someone is compiling a list of laws that Trump has flown in the face of, the lawsuits pending against him. A nation of laws? Led by such a corrupt man? We used to be a nation of laws.

Today AG Beauregard Jeffrey Sessions quoted the Bible to justify taking children from their parents. Of course, the Bible doesn’t address that subject directly—the passage he quoted was about obeying the law, which is a circular argument (or non-argument) because it refers to a flawed interpretation of the law.

I often wonder how ICE enforcers can do what they do—breaking up families, ruining lives. But I guess you look at the Gestapo, and you get a sense of the blind following of a dictator’s rulings. We are too close to that, and I am appalled.

And what is lacking in this whole scenario? Human compassion. What has happened to people that they no longer care about other people, let alone about children. Go ahead, call me a bleeding-heart liberal. I admit it. (I’m also a tree hugger.)

I’m afraid to go to sleep tonight, for fear I’ll see that Palestinian child’s face. He speaks for so many terrified children. What a world.