George Monbiot for The Guardian: Best article of the year?


One of the most moving articles I read this year was by George Monbiot (whom I've been in love with for at least ten years). See this excerpt:

"If the victims of Mr Obama's drone strikes are mentioned by the state at all, they are discussed in terms which suggest that they are less than human. The people who operate the drones, Rolling Stone magazine reports, describe their casualties as "bug splats", "since viewing the body through a grainy-green video image gives the sense of an insect being crushed". Or they are reduced to vegetation: justifying the drone war, Obama's counterterrorism adviser Bruce Riedel explained that "you've got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back." 


I'll never understand, but will continue to ask the question: how can the American public re-elect a president who says he'll continue a drone war that kills non-American kids, knowing that if he EVER referred to their own kids this way, he would not exactly be excused, let alone congratulated. Chew on that for Christmas, please. Non-American kids being killed right now by American bombs had stories, faces, names. They have families mourning for them still. They could also have had a new year. 
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