Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rosemarie Jackowski, of Bennington, an advocacy journalist and peace activist who is the author of “Banned in Vermont.” She has been the Liberty Union candidate for Vermont attorney general in the past few elections.
[H]iroshima, Nagasaki, No Gun Ri, My Lai, Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo — the list of U.S. humanitarian crimes continues to grow.
Now we have thousands of lost refugee children. How could that happen? This is the most horrific bureaucratic screw-up in history. WalMart has a more efficient system for tracking tomatoes.
No one knows how many children have been lost. This morning MSNBC reported that a government lawyer was supposed to report for a status conference, but the lawyer was absent. She said that she had “dog-sitting duties out of town.” Can you imagine trying that excuse the next time you have a court appearance. “I’m sorry, Your Honor, but my dog needed me.”
Can those government bureaucrats plead innocence by saying that they were just following orders? Unjust and illegal orders should never be followed. Remember the Nuremberg Trials. In the words of Noam Chomsky: “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American President would have been hanged.” All who are involved are complicit — including all private citizens who continue to support this rogue government.
Remember when Madeleine Albright was asked about the 500,000 dead Iraqi children. Leslie Stahl said that was more than died during the Holocaust. Albright answered: “We think the price is worth it …” The undeniable fact is that the United States has had a policy of using children as a bargaining chip for decades. Albright was right when she said that we think the price is worth it. But worth it to whom? Not to anyone with a conscience. Has the entire nation lost its moral compass?
It is time to consider reparations for every family, for every day, that they were separated from their children. How much is a day with your child worth? A thousand dollars? No, much more. Ask any mom or dad. A day with their child is worth millions. A day with any child is priceless.
Until every child is reunited with their family, all commerce and non-emergency services should stop. Strikes and boycotts are in order. If we continue to go on as if everything is normal, we are as guilty as the bungling bureaucrats. This long national nightmare will continue until we have a president who understands due process. As for President Trump — how many more reasons do we need for impeachment?
