Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Discarded Babies: Korean War and Today

Mixed-race children at a Seoul Orphanage in 1965

Nearly 3 million people died as a result of the Korean War and nearly half of them were civilians. But, they were not the only casualty of war...

The American (and other foreign servicemen) left behind countless mixed-race babies. These children were abandoned by their fathers (who had left Korea at the end of the war), their mothers (who faced cultural ostracism and social stigma), the Korean government which supported a policy of racial purity and sought to remove these children from their consciousness (through orphanages, deportation,or adoption), and the American government who claimed little responsibility for it's own citizens.




What are these children saying to you?


"I am lonely and afraid...why did you leave me?"


"I am beautiful...will you love me?"


"I am still happy..."


"Do you care?"





What of our responsibility for the orphans we create with our "surgical and precision drone strikes"...are we to name them collateral damage, future terrorists, casualties of war?

Or better yet, to not claim them at all (much like Korean War orphans)?

Our government continues to repeatedly claim "no civilian drone attack deaths"...mainly attributable to our technologically advanced and "humane" killing machines.


Is this because no one is there to count them...or because of who is doing the counting/ "thinking" for us?



American Drone Orphans in Pakistan (2010)





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