At Congressional Memorial For Massacred Iranian Schoolgirls Only 9 Members Showed Up
By Prem Thakker|Zeteo Photos: Wikimedia Commons I began my Wednesday on Capitol Hill looking at 168 pairs of shoes and backpacks representing the children the Trump-Vance administration just killed in Iran. I ended it with a Republican looking me in the face, shrugging at the crime, and treating the victims like fiction. Early Wednesday, members of Congress attended a memorial honoring the over 160children reportedly killed by a US strike on the first day of its joint war with Israel against Iran. Only 9 members came. Out of 532. I will grant that 121 members of Congress have joined a letter calling for an investigation into the US strike on the Minab girls’ school. “Our government may have done something terrible. We want the truth.” But what’s a letter? And even then, only a fifth of Congress put their name on a letter saying as much. Less than half the Democratic caucus. Zero Republicans. Nevertheless, the memorial was heart-wrenching. Organizers told me that many shoes were donated by families who wanted their children’s old shoes to become something more than just used goods. Some came from thrift stores; one apparently slashed the prices even further when they learned what they were being used for. Humanity, amid a drought of it. I spoke with several members of Congress in attendance. Rep. Jim McGovern slammed the “Epstein Class” for carrying out a war that the rest of Americans would have to bear the brunt of – whether by cost, participation, their lives, or in spirit. “The bottom line is, young school girls got blown up by a US bomb, I mean that’s a war crime,” he said, aghast. “Republican members are afraid of Trump; they’re afraid to say anything. Quietly, they’re stunned by the cost of this war – Trump told them it was going to be over in a day or two, and it’s been weeks now, there’s no end in sight.” Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari – the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress – concurred, sharing an inside look at Republican behavior: “Even when we’re in the context of briefings on this issue, there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of clapping for the administration that takes place when we’re getting responses that are incoherent and do not actually even reference intelligence.” Asked about the Republican response to the strike, Illinois Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia put it straightforwardly: “Shameful. Painful. History will not be kind to us.” “We know what the weapon was. We manufacture it here. We bear responsibility. It is immoral to delay, or to try to deny, or to fabricate that someone else did it. It is a war crime. And we need to acknowledge it. And we need to seek forgiveness for it. The best way to do that is by ending this war.” The gravity of the event was jarring, in one sense, because it wasn’t widely attended. A memorial honoring one of the most horrific US war crimes in modern history had about 30 people in attendance at once. But perhaps that most honestly memorialized the attack. A moving attempt to place a physical display of criminality at the footsteps of where the crime originates: a building where politicians mill around as if it’s just another day, as if the screams of an Iranian child are as detectable as a momentary gust of wind. And that harsh contrast was all the more evident as I departed. After the House finished voting for the day, I ran into Utah Republican Rep. Burgess Owens and asked him how Congress was responding to the strike. “I don’t know,” he said plainly. I then asked how the US should respond. He then asked me, a journalist who has no power over foreign policy, how I am responding to the Iranian government killing what he said was 40,000 people. Here’s the interaction. Minutes later, Senator Lindsey Graham took to the Senate floor to speak in support of the war. He said the best way to support service members was to have them “finish the job,” no matter, apparently, the cost. “American people: there’s going to be some pain. The region: you’re going to get hit again. We’ve lost soldiers. God bless them. God bless the wounded, couple hundred. And casualties may increase.” Shortly thereafter, the news broke: Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon wants $200 billion more for the war. I began the day at a harrowing tribute to the worst of our capabilities. I ended it witnessing one Republican consider dead children as fodder for a debate, and another treat service members as chess pieces and Iranian civilians as even less. The drums of war banged loudly. The victims’ screams echoed into oblivion.
Black News 
Photos: Wikimedia Commons
I began my Wednesday on Capitol Hill looking at 168 pairs of shoes and backpacks representing the children the Trump-Vance administration just killed in Iran. I ended it with a Republican looking me in the face, shrugging at the crime, and treating the victims like fiction.
Early Wednesday, members of Congress attended a memorial honoring the over 160children reportedly killed by a US strike on the first day of its joint war with Israel against Iran.
Only 9 members came. Out of 532.
I will grant that 121 members of Congress have joined a letter calling for an investigation into the US strike on the Minab girls’ school.
“Our government may have done something terrible. We want the truth.”
But what’s a letter?
And even then, only a fifth of Congress put their name on a letter saying as much. Less than half the Democratic caucus. Zero Republicans.
Nevertheless, the memorial was heart-wrenching.
Organizers told me that many shoes were donated by families who wanted their children’s old shoes to become something more than just used goods. Some came from thrift stores; one apparently slashed the prices even further when they learned what they were being used for.
Humanity, amid a drought of it.
I spoke with several members of Congress in attendance. Rep. Jim McGovern slammed the “Epstein Class” for carrying out a war that the rest of Americans would have to bear the brunt of – whether by cost, participation, their lives, or in spirit.
“The bottom line is, young school girls got blown up by a US bomb, I mean that’s a war crime,” he said, aghast. “Republican members are afraid of Trump; they’re afraid to say anything. Quietly, they’re stunned by the cost of this war – Trump told them it was going to be over in a day or two, and it’s been weeks now, there’s no end in sight.”
Arizona Rep. Yassamin Ansari – the only Iranian-American Democrat in Congress – concurred, sharing an inside look at Republican behavior: “Even when we’re in the context of briefings on this issue, there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of clapping for the administration that takes place when we’re getting responses that are incoherent and do not actually even reference intelligence.”
Asked about the Republican response to the strike, Illinois Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia put it straightforwardly: “Shameful. Painful. History will not be kind to us.”
“We know what the weapon was. We manufacture it here. We bear responsibility. It is immoral to delay, or to try to deny, or to fabricate that someone else did it. It is a war crime. And we need to acknowledge it. And we need to seek forgiveness for it. The best way to do that is by ending this war.”
The gravity of the event was jarring, in one sense, because it wasn’t widely attended. A memorial honoring one of the most horrific US war crimes in modern history had about 30 people in attendance at once. But perhaps that most honestly memorialized the attack. A moving attempt to place a physical display of criminality at the footsteps of where the crime originates: a building where politicians mill around as if it’s just another day, as if the screams of an Iranian child are as detectable as a momentary gust of wind.
And that harsh contrast was all the more evident as I departed. After the House finished voting for the day, I ran into Utah Republican Rep. Burgess Owens and asked him how Congress was responding to the strike. “I don’t know,” he said plainly.
I then asked how the US should respond. He then asked me, a journalist who has no power over foreign policy, how I am responding to the Iranian government killing what he said was 40,000 people. Here’s the interaction.
Minutes later, Senator Lindsey Graham took to the Senate floor to speak in support of the war.
He said the best way to support service members was to have them “finish the job,” no matter, apparently, the cost.
“American people: there’s going to be some pain. The region: you’re going to get hit again. We’ve lost soldiers. God bless them. God bless the wounded, couple hundred. And casualties may increase.”
Shortly thereafter, the news broke: Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon wants $200 billion more for the war.
I began the day at a harrowing tribute to the worst of our capabilities. I ended it witnessing one Republican consider dead children as fodder for a debate, and another treat service members as chess pieces and Iranian civilians as even less.
The drums of war banged loudly. The victims’ screams echoed into oblivion.
