Watching the media firestorm over separated families would have you believing that this is not only the first, but the worst, mistreatment of foreign families or children by our government. But it’s not the first, or anywhere near the worst. The child death toll of the United State’s drone war in the Middle East alone has racked up a far higher body count than the number of immigrants stuck in border detention centers. The Washington Times reported back in 2015 that the Obama-led drone wars murdered innocents 90% of the time. Obama authorized 540 drone strikes, killing over 4,000 people.
The ‘War on Terror’ itself has displaced millions of people, upending the social order in their respective countries, unleashing chaos for their families. Where’s the calls for revolution over that?
I’m not quibbling over who was in the White House during each phase of our apparently perpetual overseas massacre of civilians, as if any particular President is exclusively responsible for the entire debacle. By all means, lets blame Trump for his part in various atrocities, but let’s not forget that they’re not exclusive to Trump, and he’s not much different than the past 30 inhabitants of the White House. His authoritarianism is only cosmetically different than Obama’s or Bush’s, or Clinton’s.
By all means, let’s abolish ICE and end family separations at the border. We might pay more attention to why they’re coming here in the first place, and also liberalize and streamline the legal path to immigration in the process. But let’s also take the time to remember the thousands of other children dying at the hands of our government in the Middle East, and direct all the white hot energy aimed at Trump and end our foreign policy of endless intervention. Let’s also aim our outrage at the fact that our government is the biggest arms dealer in the world, with Saudi Arabia as our number one customer. Let’s remember that the largest concentration camp in the world, Palestine, is currently being overseen by one of our government’s closest allies, Israel.
Our government isn’t so innocent. Far from it. But it’s fall from grace didn’t occur only when Trump took office. That happened decades earlier, and the policies attributed to Trump will remain in effect long after he leaves office if we keep pretending their were unique to Trump alone.