In an incident which exemplified the utter lack of regard
for human life that has been a mainstay of the Bush administration’s foreign
policy, US planes pre-emptively bombed a building in a Pakistani village early
Sunday, killing at least 18 civilians in what officials claimed was an attempt to assassinate senior al Qaeda
member al-Zawahiri.
According to the NY Times, administration officials excused
the strike on the basis that intelligence on such matters is ‘often imperfect.’
Administration responses have ranged from dismissal, as
above, to denial, to a revolting attitude of ambivalence. According to the NY
Times, the white house itself actually had the tenacity to decline to comment on its own obvious complicity in the deaths of
18 innocent Pakistani civilians.
If this is the treatment the Bush administration awards
members of a country we claim to hold as an essential ally in the ‘war on
terror’, what can we expect for the civilians killed as ‘collateral damage’ in
countries US
military occupation?