I was reading about and viewing the pictures of five young soldiers coming back from Iraq, scarred for the rest of their lives, and I was again outraged. Why are not more Americans outraged at this President's impeachable offense, this egregious injustice that is transpiring not only on the Iraqi people who are being killed and mayhem daily but also our own young men and women?
Is it because this injustice has not yet affected the vast middle class of America? And is it because they are unaffected physically that they can easily separate themselves from the pains of "those distant others" without any tinge of shame, guilt, remorse for what their tax dollars are doing around the world? Will the words of John Donne, Martin Luther Kings and the host of others never penetrate the American psyche? Any thinking person must be able to see that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to just everywhere." Surely they must know that "...No man is an island apart from the main." That main being affected is humanity, and American forces are inflicting much pain on humanity across the globe.
This nation has troops stationed in 144 countries around the world; this nation spends more money on its military than all other major nations combined; this nation sells more military arms to other nations (third world) than any other nation. Is the enemy so dangerous, so ubiquitous, so everywhere that we (the USA) must be there (everywhere) to confront that enemy, must spend a trillion dollars for military armament each year?
Maybe we need to look at and reassess who the enemy is; whether we are doing things to create enemies; and whether these enemies our leaders tell us/scare us into to believing are there are really there and have a serious forensic reason for being our enemy.
Some time ago, President Bush, in his willful ignorance and absolute blindness, went running with US amputees of his Iraqi war--amputees that he, Cheney, and that cabal of war hawks are the direct cause of--but he never saw or felt any shame--he put a happy and patriotic face on the situation. But this president has no heart: he lied to get us into the wrong war and wrapped these young soldiers in the flag to die and become amputees and burn victims before they have even begun their lives or really know about life. And dismissing the grave harm that he is doing to others, he and his oil partners spend more and more US dollars fighting this corporation-get-richer- war, but calling it patriotic.
And while our poor soldiers and the Iraqi people are dying, O'sama bin Ladin still walks and talks; he still makes fun at America because, in spite of what Bush says, this nation has demonstrated gross incompetence and ineptitude in fighting guerrilla warfare. This president stood/sat in a secure bunker and gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his own country or the US military would invade. And he and Cheney pretend like this war is some fight for freedom or some patriotic endeavor. It is not!
The real enemy to this nation, whether he has forensic cause to be an enemy or not, is now making new video tapes, five years after Bush declared war on him but became side tracked with a nation that was not involved in bombing the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, etc. Yet that little nation is showing the lessons of Vietnam again--the US may be able to go into a nation with its sophisticated airplanes and bombs, it may kill many people, but it cannot subdue the will of a people to resist even to their last man.
Aside from losing this Iraq conflict and setting the world against us, the US has allowed Al Quida to become operational again, and this president has managed to reignite the Cold War.
What seeming incompetence? What disguised but possible calculated fascist brilliance to plunder the US treasury? How impeachable? How malevolent? And the nation looks away and tells itself that all things are well in America: we have the iPhone, a new Harry Potter movie and soon a book; these will placate serious thoughts of conscience. As the band plays on, hail/hell to the chief!
Simond Griote
7/16/07
