by James Glaser
September 3, 2002

Yes that is right America is so very lucky that almost all of our American citizens have never seen what happens in a war. September 11 and the horrible terrorist attack was just one small glimpse of what it is to be on the receiving end of an all out military attack.

Just for a minute, think of those poor people in Afghanistan that we are "liberating." They have been in a war for over twenty years. For the first ten of those years, the United States provided the weapons so that they could defeat the Soviet Union and then America walked away and said "have a nice life."

Then those Afghans, awash in American and Soviet weapons had themselves a ten year civil war and America has stepped back in with weapons and now air power, raising the specter of war to new heights.

On September 11, those that lost loved ones got to sit at home while professionals went about the grizzly job of finding and cleaning the bodies of their loved ones. In a country with twenty years of war under its belt those that lose a loved one are the same people that find those loved ones body parts and clean and wrap their own loved ones for burial. Yes, we are lucky

On September 11, those who were alive but hurt, could go to a hospital, better yet were taken to a hospital where the worlds finest medicine and pain killing drugs could be used to save as many as possible. Those in Afghanistan have few if any hospitals and no medicine or pain killers and mothers and fathers have to hold their dying children, who leave this world in a series of racking screams of pain. Yes, we are lucky.

America has caused this type of horror in over twenty two countries that we were trying to help since World War II. Because most Americans have never seen a real war we think that our military actions are helping people, never realizing the life long horror we are imprinting on whole societies that have to live through the horrors we have never seen.

Our arm sales, the greatest the world has ever seen also contributes to horrors on a global scale. Selling arms to dictators like Saddam Hussein, providing all the ingredients needed to make chemical and biological weapons, that Dick Cheney, now wants us to attack him for.

Dick Cheney has never seen a war, he stayed in college while 58,000 of his classmates gave their lives in a war that killed millions. Now Dick wants his classmate's kids to see what a real war is all about. Dick is lucky too.

If America continues to be the greatest cause of war this planet has ever seen, continues to arm anybody that says they like us, and continues to oppress millions, by supporting corrupt governments, then our luck will run out.