CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

A Culture of Violence Finds Its Nearly Perfect Number of Victims

Cooper with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Photograph Source: U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Michael Ito – Public Domain

Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command whose responsibilities include coordinating attacks on Iran, recently testified at a Senate hearing. Cooper said that when it comes to Iranian civilian deaths caused by US missiles, the United States has done a practically flawless job. The New York Times reported that Cooper suggested: “the US military’s record … had been near perfect.”

According to Admiral Cooper, near perfection apparently translates to an estimated 1,700 civilian deaths in Iran since February 28, when the United States and Israel began an unprovoked war of aggression. Unprovoked military attacks are major crimes under international law. In fact, they are a violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter.

That nearly perfect record includes the deaths of about 254 children, 120 of whom (and likely more) were killed on the very first day of the illegal war when a Tomahawk missile slammed into an elementary school. About thirty teachers and parents were also killed.

Closer to home, we are approaching the fourth anniversary this month of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were murdered. One does not need a law degree to know that shooting up a school is against the law, too.

Would it be remotely acceptable—or sane—to opine that Salvador Ramos, the shooter at Uvalde, would have had a nearly perfect, practically spotless body count to his name if just one or two children were killed? Many legislators certainly don’t fuss over these fine distinctions since they could not have cared less about any number of murdered school children in Texas or Iran, a sentiment that in itself is criminal, but not in any formal legal sense. No, they proceeded in a perfectly legal manner when they resisted calls........

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