War is Hell, But Governments Are Worse
In the news now, a little over three years after the invasion of Iraq, another possible My Lai massacre. Haditha, Iraq. Word that American soldiers went apeshit and killed 24 civilians – even babies, without provocation. Dear God, shooting a baby? How do you do it? What place do you have to get to inside yourself? What monsters have we created of our own soldiers? What part of your humanity has left you when you are able to pump a bullet into an infant? It’s unreal and so wrong and sad that mere words cannot do it justice. My heart breaks for every lost soldier, every lost innocent Iraqi life. Oh God, especially the children. The waste is so magnificent and mind numbing. It is surreal. The lost lives, the lost futures, the grief that cannot be properly articulated.
This was a long-planned, illegal, immoral, unjust invasion of a country that had nothing to do with toppling Saddam Hussein, or pre-emptively stopping his non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction' or the threat of terrorism, past or future. In fact, this corrupt, sick, corporate-whoring Fascist government was so hell bent on going to war with Iraq that now they've created a cruel, unending, hotbed of terrorism in a country that was essentially no real threat to us ever.
Democracy is a dream; civil war and relentless killing is the reality. The trial of Saddam Hussein proceeds like some kind of Dali-like circus. Who’s running the asylum? Dead children lying in bloody heaps. We've lost whatever credibility we had for whatever good we've done in the eyes of the world for invading a country without good reason (9/11 doesn't count - there's no proven connection between Iraq and 9/11) or U.N. support, we've killed well over 2,000 soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Yeah, remember them? Men, women, children. Dead. Forever. Gone. A country destroyed at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars. A country that has turned into Vietnam via attrition; yes, I'll make the comparison because I feel like it, and where's Walter Kronkite when you need him? The White House Press Corps are a bunch of pussies. They ought to just eat this administration alive. Oh but now we can rebuild the very country we destroyed by handing out nice fact contracts to companies like Halliburton and spend billions more, making the regime of men who caused this nightmare even richer. I doubt that'll ever happen with the way the killing is going. Whereas that money could've gone say, hmmm, to Africa, to helping to wipe out malaria, to Medicines San Frontiers, to the American Red Cross, to Oxfam, to Heifer International, to UNICEF, to the continued rebuilding of the tsunami-ravaged areas of East India, Sumatra, Thailand, or even to the victims of fucking hurricane Katrina - yes, people in OUR OWN COUNTRY.
Sure, it's nice to know a psychotic dictator like Saddam Hussein is currently wasting Iraqi time and money by not showing up to his own puppet court/trial and complaining that he's been wearing the same underwear for three days in a row. Pardon me while I simultaneously vomit and shed a few crocodile tears.If America was really serious about pre-emptively striking down leaders and countries we think are legitimate threats to our national well-being, why haven't we sent a few hundred thousand troops and SCUD missiles over to North Korea....or Iran….oh yeah, because they actually have nuclear weapons and might blow us to kingdom come. When push comes to shove, we don't actually fuck around with those who could truly fuck us over. Despite the massive lies of WMD, Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to the United States.
Retribution for 9/11? When you're sleeping with the enemy that's hard to come by. 19 out of 20 terrorists on those planes either came from or held Saudi Arabian passports. But who does Bush invite down to the OK Corral in Crawford for a little bar-b-que? The kings and princes from the family of Saud, who are as corrupt and evil as any single mad dictator. But they've got something we want: black gold. And then he has the gall, the fucking gall to tell us we’re addicted to oil and we have to change. Tell us something we don’t know. We’re addicted to oil? I’ll stop driving my car when you stop sleeping with the fucking enemy.
I'm old enough now not to see things in black and white. America has done great good for the world. We have also done great evil for our own interests and you don't even have to read Noam Chomsky or subscribe to Z-net or be a fan of Michael Moore to know that. Actually, perhaps a lot of people DON'T know that - or choose not to believe that America has tortured, killed, looted, pillaged, destroyed, controlled, and manipulated thousands of people and many countries for its own benefit. Isolationism is a moot point now; we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. Certainly we learned over 60 years ago that some madmen can't be ignored; Neville Chamberlain's attempt at appeasement basically allowed Hitler the power he sought and we know the price the world paid to destroy that monster and his killing machines. And yet still today, there are heinous dictators in charge of countries, destroying people's lives...and we do not get involved. We are not there to 'liberate' those people or give them a taste of 'democracy'. Probably because they don't have anything we want or need. If America truly cared about humanity, where were we - indeed - where was the WORLD 11 years ago as almost 1 million people were hacked to death in less than two months in Rwanda? We deliberately pulled our people out of that conflict, and played the isolationist card, because who cared if a bunch of Tutsi's and Hutu's hated each other and wanted to fight some tribal war? Something tells me though that if their blood ran black and could power a Hummer, you bet we would've been there with buckets in hand, draining those bloated corpses to the last bitter drop.
What can we do? What we can do is face the awful truth. Maybe this isn't like Vietnam at all. Because haven't you ever wondered why you rarely if EVER see the dead coming home? Where are the pictures of the flag-covered coffins lined up, one after one on aircraft carriers? Where is President Bush seen greeting those dead, saluting them and their families for sacrificing their lives for essentially a pack of lies and his own personal agenda? Oh that's right, he's back at the ranch, hiding out from Cindy Sheehan. And giving orders to absolutely, under no circumstances let the press photograph those flag-draped caskets being taken off those planes - because God forbid - Americans might actually start to realize people are DYING in this war.
Here is what I know for sure: The world is an infinitely complex, complicated place where even trying to live in the gray area is difficult at times. I believe most Americans, by and large and good and decent people. I believe too many however choose to plead ignorance and laziness and follow this government like lemmings, swallowing lie after lie while driving around in their fat SUV's. America has done tremendous good for many, and it has done some very, very bad things to many as well. Whatever our government has done over the years, there is no excusing or apologizing for 9/11. If our government supports Israel to the detriment of the Palestinians, that is wrong: but three thousand people did not deserve to die horrific deaths because of acts of governments they could not control. Apologetics for 9/11 are free to express their views but they live in a black and white world.
No matter the reason, or exit strategy, if there even is one, what I know for sure is that hundreds of thousands of people's lives have been destroyed by this senseless war. There are young men who will never, never get married, and never see their children grow up. There are young women who will never have children, never get married, and never have a career. There are children without parents and parents without children. There are mothers who have had to bear the absolute unbearable: the loss of a child, or God forbid, children. This is what I know for sure: President Bush's children, Dick Cheney's children, Donald Rumsfeld's children are all safe and sound. This is what I know for sure: War is hell, but what would any of them know about war?
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