How do you orphan ten children, what kind of depravity is that?
This was the question put to Gerry Adams by 60 Minutes presenter Scott Pelley while questioning Adams about the murder of Jean McConville by the Provisional IRA in 1972.
Adams truthfully and accurately replied:
That is what happens in wars.
We only have to take a brief look at Mr. Pelley’s own country to see the truth of that. Thousands of civilians killed (murdered?) by ‘depraved’ drone strikes in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. Countless thousands ‘murdered’ by ‘depraved’ American citizens in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and most other places of American military involvement.
Here’s just one example of the aftermath of a (depraved?) drone strike.
As later reports revealed, the strike was far from a success. At least nine civilians died, most of them from one family. There was one survivor, 14-year-old Fahim Qureshi, but with horrific injuries including shrapnel wounds in his stomach, a fractured skull and a lost eye, he was as much a victim as his dead relatives.
At the moment Mr. Pelley was asking Mr. Adams about depravity in conflict his country had numerous armed drones on mission to kill selected targets, in his name, with the likely consequences for innocent civilians.
And in case I’m sounding anti American let me stress that every war is the same, the citizens of every country behave in the same manner in time of war. War is a depraved human activity. No human, no country has a high moral ground from which they can look down in purity and judge others.
What humans should do is acknowledge the reality of their brutal nature and work towards bringing it under control.