Human beings comprise an omnicidal species. Apparently there is nothing they won’t kill. Yet some claim to value life and say that all lives matter. But if all lives matter, Palestinian lives matter, Syrian lives matter, Iraqi lives matter, Afghan lives matter, Libyan lives matter. If all lives matter, Osama bin Laden’s life mattered. So did Al Awlaki’s and his fifteen year old son’s. So did Gaddafi’s and the lives of every member of the armed forces who died on a Middle Eastern battlefield, including the Americans who died there. But they are dead now, gone forever, and George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the neoconservatives who advocated going to war in Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring nonexistent weapons of mass destruction murdered them as surely as Dr. Palmer murdered Cecil the lion.
A few weeks ago, my wife came in from the back yard yelling, “John, John, a snake. There’s a snake in the back yard. Get something to kill it. Kill it.”