Well, he isn’t referring specifically to drone pilots, but he might as well be. Carson, who was certainly no pacifist, and never hesitated to shoot down men he regarded as hostile Indians, nevertheless knew a war crime when he saw it. Remarking on the Sand Creek Massacre, mentioned in my article today, Carson said:
Jis to think of that dog Chivington and his dirty hounds, up thar at Sand Creek. His men shot down squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call sich soldiers Christians, do ye? And Indians savages? What der yer ‘spose our Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things? I tell you what, I don’t like a hostile red skin any more than you do. And when they are hostile, I’ve fought ’em, hard as any man. But I never yet drew a bead on a squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would.
Indeed, the war criminals at Sand Creek were more courageous than drone pilots, for at least Chivington and his men showed up in person to do their murdering, and were slightly in danger of being killed. Drone pilots murder children from an easy chair in a suburban warehouse.
9:44 am on May 1, 2013
