Blowback

Since America is supplying much of the military hardware used to annihilate these children, Americans don’t want to hear the extent to which their tax dollars are used.

12-year-old Ayoub Asalya was killed by an Israeli missile while he was going to school. Had he been an Israeli child killed by a rocket from Gaza, it would be headlines, however it was not.

(MANAMA, Bahrain) - Call it revenge. Call it retribution. Describe it as “chickens coming home to roost.” Don’t call it terrorism. Call it Blowback - the unintended consequences of our foreign policy.

Among the stories that don't get much Western press coverage, but should is one by Rosa Schiano about 12-year-old Ayoub Asalya who was killed by an Israeli missile while he was going to school.

“The nights before he was killed,” says Ayoub’s mother, “he came to me saying that he was afraid to sleep alone in his room because of the attacks. So that night Ayoub slept in his mother’s room, and he woke up early in the morning to go to school.

“Before leaving,” says his mother, “he asked me to buy a new pair of shoes, and he told me he would buy me a present for Mother’s Day.

“After a few minutes I heard an airstrike, I ran outside, and I found Wafi, Ayoub’s cousin, lying with his face on the ground. The ambulance arrived and took Wafi to the hospital.

"Then the ambulance personnel started looking for others potentially injured, and suddenly one of them started shouting that a Palestinian kid with a school uniform has been killed.

"Ayoub’s body was torn into pieces everywhere."

If Ayoub had been an Israeli, his story would have been covered by a whole network of Western press reports.

Lengthy discussions would have followed about how many rockets are fired from Gaza and how retaliatory strikes are necessary to preserve Israel's security.

Strange! When these stories are about Palestinian children, there's no talk about the need for security and retribution.

Since America is supplying much of the military hardware used to annihilate these children, Americans don’t want to hear the extent to which their tax dollars are used.

Even worse, they don’t realize that they are investing in blowback-- themselves as the target.

“The shooting spree against a Jewish school in Toulouse on March 19th is the most serious anti-Semitic attack that has taken place in France since Paris' Jo Goldenberg restaurant was bombed in 1982, with the loss of six lives,” reports Jean-Yves Camus in Haaretz.

Don’t call it anti-Semitic. Call it blowback!

Another murder of innocents in Afghanistan was reported in the San Francisco Chronicle: “I went inside and found the dead bodies of my two sons, four daughters, my mother, brother and my wife," Wazir said in an interview in Kandahar.

"Also my brother's wife and his nephew, who had come from Spin Boldak and was our guest. All their bodies had been brought into one room and burned.

Chalmers Johnson author of Blowback writes, “The foreign policies of the 21st century would largely be dictated by blowback - retaliation by people on the receiving end, those victimized by our foreign policy, particularly our secret foreign policy.”

Johnson predicts that the war in Iraq alone will guarantee blowback until the end of time.

Commenting on the takeover of Iran in 1953, Ron Paul said, "Yes there was blowback. The reaction to that was the taking of our hostages, and that persists.

“If we ignore that, we ignore it at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem (an understatement).

“Why would anyone anticipate blowback would be less severe on the part of families in countries we have occupied for many years?” asks Congressman Paul.

“They don’t come here to attack us because we're rich and free,” says the only sensible Republican candidate. “They come to attack us because we're over there.”

Throughout his life as an educator, Dr. Paul J. Balles, a retired American university professor and freelance writer, has lived and worked in the Middle East for 40 years - first as an English professor (Universities of Kuwait and Bahrain), and for the past ten years as a writer, editor and editorial consultant.

He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the GULF DAILY NEWS . Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. He writes a weekly op-ed column for Akbar Al Khaleej (Arabic). He has also edited seven websites, including bahrainthismonth.com, womenthismonth.com

Paul has had more than 350 articles published, focusing on companies, personality profiles, entrpreneurs, women achievers, journalists and the media, the Middle East, American politics, the Internet and the Web, consumer reports, Arabs, diplomats, dining out and travel. Paul's articles on Salem-News.com are frank and enlightening. We are very appreciative of the incredible writings Dr. Balles has generated for our readers over the years, and we are very pleased to list him among our most valued contributors.

Indulging the hard subjects that keep the world divided is our specialty at Salem-News.com, and with writers like Dr. Paul Balles on our team, we amplify our ability to meet challenges and someday, will see the effects of this exist in context with a more peaceful and generally successful world.