Letter to Editor: Use of Drones Will Come to Haunt the U.S.

To the Editor:

The murder of 20 children and seven adults in Connecticut was a horrible, senseless tragedy.

The murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen by President Obama’s drone attacks is evil beyond words.

The U.S. government now gives itself legitimacy in making the entire world a global battlefield. The American president is judge, jury and executioner in deciding life or death for people living in countries where there has been no declaration of war. Those targeted are never given an opportunity to defend themselves or any need for the U.S. military to justify the murders. The dead are called insurgents, and the details, unlike in the Connecticut incident, are strongly censored from the public.

The murder of American children has our politicians shedding tears and beating their chests. The dead from drone attacks reveals the total hypocrisy of members of Congress, like Mr. LoBiondo who takes thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and then facilitates Mr. Obama’s killings.

Are the lives of American children more valuable than the lives of others? If this is the American view, it is a recipe for eternal war and must not stand.

We have gone a long way down the weird and winding road of recent American history.

From Dr. King’s “I have a dream” to Mr. Obama’s unstated but palpable “I have a drone.”

A recently passed law approved by (our lobbyist) Congress and signed by Mr. Obama gives drones unlimited access to American air space in 9/2015 for surveillance and missiles. If the people don’t act, we will soon witness the meaning of “what goes around, comes around.”

Steven Fenichel, MD
Ocean City