5 (children) dead in Afghanistan. What? How many more?

Glenn Greenwald has a great post up today on the unquestioned immorality of civilian deaths in an increasingly incomprehensible war in Afghanistan, and the media's lack of concern, compared to the breathless coverage of a probably overhyped terror plot in Yemen:

At some point — and more than a decade would certainly qualify — the act of continuously killing innocent people, countless children, in the Muslim world most certainly does reflect upon, and even alters, the moral character of a country, especially its leaders. You can't just spend year after year piling up the corpses of children and credibly insist that it has no bearing on who you are. That's particularly true when, as is the case in Afghanistan, the cause of the war is so vague as to be virtually unknowable. It's woefully inadequate to reflexively dismiss every one of these incidents as the regrettable but meaningless by-product of our national prerogative. But to maintain mainstream credibility, that is exactly how one must speak of our national actions even in these most egregious cases. To suggest any moral culpability, or to argue that continuously killing children in a country we're occupying is morally indefensible, is a self-marginalizing act, whereby one reveals oneself to be a shrill and unSerious critic, probably even a pacifist. Serious commentators, by definition, recognize and accept that this is merely the inevitable outcome of America's supreme imperial right, note (at most) some passing regret, and then move on.

Proud, then, to be shrill, unSerious and a pacifist. Not sure if that fits on a T-shirt. All this is a reminder to you, and myself, that I still haven't awarded the autographed copy of Rachel Maddow's No. 1 best-selling Drift. But I will. Before I go to bed. I promise.