the attack on 14 year old malala yousafzai by a criminal gang in swat is repulsive. it’s even more repulsive that the pakistani govt will be incapable of apprehending the perpetrators and bringing them to justice. there is no accountability or justice at any level of society, anyway. do we know the names of 14 year old girls (or the names of their mothers or fathers or baby brothers) who are incinerated by drones – “carbonized bodies, burned so fully they could be identified by legs and hands alone, the bystanders sent flying like dolls through the air to break, with shattered bones and sometimes fatal brain injuries, upon walls and stone” (in kathy kelly’s words). all dead children are not equal. it makes my blood boil when people use malala’s horrific ordeal to justify america’s drone warfare. if the “militants” (that mysterious designation reserved for the exclusive use of president obama and his henchmen) are worth going after, at the cost of other lives, then let that sacrifice be yours and your family’s, not that of the people of waziristan.