The US Has Killed 168 Malalas in Pakistan

The western mainstream media has been flooded with coverage of the sickening attack by The Taliban on 14 year old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai. The story rapidly went global, with the majority of newspapers in the UK and US dedicating their front pages to it, and news channels providing updates on a daily basis.

The media has given us an in-depth insight into Malala’s life and her cause, pulling on our heart-strings and galvanising support around the world. But surely, the brazen hypocrisy of it all is glaringly obvious.

It goes without saying that MPACUK fervently and whole-heartedly condemn the murder of innocent civilians, especially children. There is no justification for shooting a 14 year old girl just because of her political views. But for the media to focus on one innocent girl that the Taliban have attacked when US drones have killed hundreds of innocent men, women and children in Pakistan, is frankly outrageous. The audacity of the media to exploit this incident to justify the “war on terror”, when it is this very war, that is the cause of the murder of thousands of innocent children, no different to Malala is despicable.

Children just like Malala are murdered every day by US drone attacks from the same region she is from. Do they even get a mention on the news? Are they flown to the UK to receive the best medical treatment?

The Bureau of Investigative Journalists reports that so far 168 children have lost their lives in Pakistan due do drone strikes. What if Malala was killed by a US drone? Do you think you would her story on every news channel? And that’s just in Pakistan. Did the story of the Afghani girl who died from severe bleeding from tears in her genitals due to being raped by US soldiers even make it into the news? Where was her campaign?

Just a few days before Malala was shot, Imran Khan led the biggest anti-drone march in Pakistan, which gained its fair share of media attention. However, the wave of media attention on the shooting of one girl has drowned out the voices of hundreds of thousands that marched to call an end to drone strikes that have claimed hundreds of innocent lives.

The propaganda game that is being played here is a very clever one. The use of children to garner support to further an agenda is an old trick, that has been played many times before. Remember the Kony 2012 campaign that went viral because children were in danger? And remember how it then came out that over 2 billion barrels of oil had been discovered in Uganda? Have a read through this brilliant piece on how this has been done multiple times before in order to brainwash the masses.

The truth is, Malala is being exploited as the latest propaganda tool created by the global oligarchies whose aim is to further the imperialistic agenda of occupation. They care as much about Malala as the other 168 children murdered in Pakistan.