I Wonder What 8-Year-Old Nawar “Nora” al-Awlaki Thought of Carryn Owens’ Big Moment Last Night

by Scott Creighton

Thousands of news outlets are covering the “big moment” from last night’s presidential address to congress. You know the one. It was when President Trump mentioned Navy Seal Ryan Owens’ death in Yemen (without actually mentioning Yemen) and pointed out his widow, Carryn Owens, who was in attendance. I don’t have to tell you what happened after that. It was her moment to shine and shine she did.

She did this, and this, and this, and a whole lot of this:

She did a lot of that.A LOT of that. She milked it for everything it was worth and the audience ate it up. Her standing ovation lasted an uncomfortable 3 minutes. A painful 3 minutes.

Perhaps it was most painful for the wives of the two law enforcement officers who were killed ON DUTY by an illegal immigrant who had already been arrested and deported twice. They were there as well and the ovation they received for their fallen husbands lasted about 10 seconds. For both of them. I don’t see many articles this morning written about the suffering those women are enduring these days. I guess they were wearing the wrong uniforms? Maybe less important ones?

In MSNBC’s post mortem for the speech, slobbering Chris Mathews said Carryn was “talking” to her deceased husband. “That is love” he said as he went on to suggest soldiers can only hope to leave behind such dedicated spouses.

The president made the comment that he had been “told” by his Defense Secretary that the raid which cost the life of Carryn’s husband resulted in the collection of tons of valuable intelligence that would be critical in fighting “the enemy” over there.

That’s total bunk. That’s why he used the disclaimer that he had been “told” that and he didn’t say it as a fact. Because it isn’t a fact. The raid was not about gathering “intelligence” from some hard drives as we have been led to believe. It was about killing someone, a woman in fact.

“The official, and others briefed on the matter who spoke to NBC News, echoed the remarks of Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz., that the raid was designed to kill or capture one or more militants — something the military did not initially acknowledge.” CNBC

This fact was verified early after the bungled mission by the grandfather of one of the youngest victims of the attack and a former official in the Yemeni puppet Saleh regime, a man who used to work for our interests in Yemen.

“They [the SEALs] entered another house and killed everybody in it, including all the women. They burned the house. There is an assumption there was a woman [in the house] from Saudi Arabia who was with al Qaeda. All we know is that she was a children’s teacher.”…

The child’s mother, Anwar al-Awlaki’s widow, survived the raid with a minor wound, according to Nasser al-Awlaki. However, Anwar al-Awlaki’s brother-in-law was killed in the raid. The death toll varies according to the sourcing, with the Pentagon saying 14 militants died, along with “numerous” civilians. Nasser al-Awlaki said Yemenis were circulating a body count of combatants and civilians as high as 59.” NBC News

They went there to kill or capture a “militant”… a woman… supposedly with al Qaeda who was a teacher and friend of their family.

The Pentagon admits a number of civilians were killed in that raid. Trump failed to mention that little tidbit of fact last night. If he had I doubt Carryn would have emoting for 3 minutes while “speaking” to her husband “in heaven”

The youngest of those victims of the slaughter was the daughter of a U.S. citizen, an 8-year-old girl named Nawar “Nora” al-Awlaki. She was shot in the neck at 2:30 in the morning after being woken by a massive MV-22 Osprey crash landing just outside of her home. She died terrified. Bled to death over the course of about two hours because they couldn’t get her medical attention. An 8-year-old daughter of a U.S. citizen.

The senior military official said the 8-year-old girl, Nawar al-Awlaki, also known as Nora, was among the noncombatants killed in the raid, which also resulted in the death of several Yemeni women. U.S. officials said some of the women who were killed, however, were combatants and had opened fire on the SEALs as they approached the al Qaeda camp.

The girl’s grandfather, Nasser al-Awlaki, Yemen’s former agriculture minister, told NBC News a different story. He identified his granddaughter as the dead girl from a photo taken at the scene of the raid but based his description on what happened at the camp on conversations with what he characterized as Yemeni sources.

“My granddaughter was staying for a while with her mother, so when the attack came, they were sitting in the house, and a bullet struck her in her neck at 2:30 past midnight. Other children in the same house were killed,” al-Awlaki said. He said the girl died two hours after being shot.” NBC News

Here is a picture of Nora.

That little 8-year-old girl died on the same night that Ryan Owens died. She died along with about 30 other civilians, women and children included, depending on who’s numbers you trust. (go read this and judge for yourself)

She died in a “boots on the ground” raid in a country we have no business in, not for “intelligence gathering” but for a “snatch and grab” operation, a black bag op, which targeted, as best as I can tell, a woman… a teacher.

During last night’s painfully prolonged tribute to Carryn’s fallen husband, I wonder if anyone in that room gave a second’s thought to the other women sitting there wondering why their fallen spouses didn’t receive the same reverence that Ryan Owens did? Their husbands didn’t take part in a raid killing women and children on the other side of the world. They were fighting right here in this country against violent criminals bound and determined to cause direct harm to some of our citizens.

Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t Ryan’s fault. He didn’t plan the raid he didn’t pick the target. He was “just following orders”… right?

And it isn’t Carryn’s fault that the sycophants in that room last night felt they had to stand and applaud forever because someone might be watching and we know what happens to congress critters who don’t back the glorious Endless War OF Terror. They get primaried by their own party because the Military Industrial Complex demands it.

They’re all just people caught up in something bigger than they are doing their level best to keep their heads above water like the rest of us.

They say Nora was wise beyond her years. I hope that is true. I hope Nora was looking down last night at Carryn with forgiveness. I hope she looks at us all with forgiveness. Because after last night’s little display, we need it. We don’t deserve it. But we need it.

23 Responses

  1. If people don’t begin to take stock of their “jobs” to determine how they affect other people, we have no chance of making the necessary changes in this world. Probably 99% of the harmful activities going on in the world are a direct result of ordinary people just doing their jobs. The really bad guys do the planning, but they couldn’t carry out their plans without ordinary people doing the “dirty work.”

    • I agree 100%. But I avoided directly blaming Ryan for the death of Nora or the other civilians because I just don’t know what went down. He could have refused to target unarmed women and children and been fragged for all I know. That shit does happen. That’s why I did not make that case. decades ago the grunts in the Army started something called Fox Tango Alpha which stood for “Fuck the Army” and I wrote years ago that the movement was building steam and it was that, not the Pentagon Papers, that ended the Vietnam war. Troops were refusing to fight. Perhaps we will see something like that one of these days. Perhaps.

      • FTA was decades ago. Gone with the GTO.

        As for fragging, that’s nearly impossible. ALL these missions are on video. Every single one. Multiple cameras.

        • Except if it’s the Brass doing the fragging, cameras won’t help. I suppose that may have been the case with the previous Seal team 6’s little training accident.

          Guessing this was more likely a case of friendly fire than fragging (or a schoolteacher smoking a JSOC Jedi for that matter).

          • cameras dont help either. if you don’t think soldiers are smart enough to figure out how to disable their camera if they need to, you aren’t giving them enough credit. What he is saying is tantamount to someone saying cops wearing cameras will stop ALL police brutality and malfeasance. It’s just a pipe dream and a naive one at that.

            • Yeah, I assume Mudhole was also referring to the eyes in the sky like drones and satellites. Certainly those types of cameras would make Vietnam-style fragging very difficult for grunts to get away with…at least outdoors.

              • drones and satellites arent’ going to pick up anything that happens inside a building and besides, do you really think they outfitted the team with cameras knowing full well they were going in to hit a family?

              • Railcams. The size of the tip of your thumb. Goes on the accessory rail on your weapon. Everything is recorded- everything. Sweep your buddy with your muzzle- it’s on video. Don’t shoot who you are supposed to shoot- it’s on video.

                • I assume you mean “don’t shoot who you are NOT supposed to shoot - it’s on video”

                  However, as I said before, the argument that these cameras equate to instant “justice” and therefore a change in behavior is absolutely wrong. And I say that not just because it obviously doesn’t work with the police, but I say that because it OBVIOUSLY doesn’t work with Seal Team 6 SPECIFICALLY:

                  “Furthermore, it quotes SEAL Team 6 members as saying that senior commanders not only failed to discipline wrongdoing but also swept many details under the rug so as to avoid legal entanglements.

                  That often necessitated a culture of lying that grew out of a desire to protect teammates.

                  ‘You can’t win an investigation on us,’ a former SEAL Team 6 leader told The Intercept.” Daily Mail

                  This raid appears to have been run in an effort to polish the recently tarnished image of Seal Team 6. And by the way, the spin that the military tried to use to explain away all the women and kids who were killed started the VERY NEXT DAY

                  • the cameras are supposed to be secret. They’ll never admit their existence, or the fact that all these raids are recorded.
                    Ten or so years ago, when Stan McChrystal was head of JSOC, he said in an address to the troops “We have killed thousands of people, none whom have proven to been any threat to us.” So, if the raids have no tactical purpose, because the people they kill are no threat, what is the purpose of these raids, which they are still doing ten years and thousands of deaths later?
                    The purpose is terror- to frighten the Muslim world into compliance with the bankers wishes, to murder their leaders, and very likely, to force people to grow dope for them.They didn’t turn Trashcanistan into a heroin farm by asking nicely.
                    Cameras force the raid members to ‘get with the program’. Instant performance review, and potential blackmail material as well.

        • Really?? Guess you haven’t looked into what happened to Pat Tillman. ps: as a former grunt from the 1st Gulf war, FTA was going strong at that time.

  2. to make such an obvious display of ‘speaking to God’ about killing so many innocent people but only suggesting the value of one of the men doing the killing is making a mockery of God. And they did it on national live TV. I believe it is the first time any president has taken such a liberty….. to assist the insulting of God and to be cheered for it.
    Our churches should answer with anger…..

    • But they wont. They are probably calling her publicist as we speak looking to book her on the first Sunday she has available for their televangilist program.

    • I can think of a couple previous presidents who also took such liberties with god. Gott mit uns, etc.. I am afraid we’ll be seeing more warrior hero worship to keep the evangelicals on board with the big Pivot to Asia War. All heil the victorious dead!

  3. It’s all so absurd.

  4. The New World Order….Proudly brought to you by people “just doing their jobs”

  5. War propaganda at its best. Nothing better than to show a white anglo-saxon protestant (or not) crying for the death of her beloved soldier. Trump also has risen the military budget this year, though I don’t know how he will build America’s infrastructure, while increasing the war budget.

    • The U.S. government creates dollars out of thin air, simply by changing the numbers in bank accounts. It is exactly like creating points out of thin air by changing the numbers on a sports scoreboard. Neither money nor points are physical. They are purely mental constructs, and are therefore limitless. The water-well is literally bottomless and inexhaustible, yet they tell you it is dry so that you grovel for every drop.

  6. In September 2016, U.S.-backed terrorists attacked a 31-truck convoy in Syria because the trucks were headed for the people in Aleppo, not for the U.S.-backed terrorists.

    Today U.N. “investigators” declared that the Syrian military did the attack, and that it was an “egregious war crime.” They said the attack (by U.S.-armed terrorists) was “meticulously planned” and “ruthlessly carried out.” They claimed that chlorine canisters which the terrorists fired at civilians were “barrel bombs” dropped by the Syrian military.

    What does this mean? Nothing, except that when the Empire loses, or it is caught committing atrocities, the Empire’s toadies spend decades posing as saints, and accusing their innocent victims of evil. All the peasants in the Empire believe and defend the lies, since all of them are self-righteous a**holes. That’s what makes them peasants. (Genuinely compassionate people are not peasants, regardless of their financial status.)

    • Once again, US intervention in this country was shameless. Most people don’t really know what went there, because they got confused by the US propaganda. They blame the russians and Assad for everything wrong.

  7. Drain the swamp amirite Scott?

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