|
Tearing At Our Heart Strings
by James Glaser September 6, 2007 I just watched a commercial on television where a woman recounted how she lost an uncle on 9/11 and her husband in Iraq to terrorism. There was a quick flash of a fireman in fire fighting gear, and a soldier in desert camouflage. The woman was shown sitting with what appeared to be a nine or ten year old boy. I assume he is her son, but they never stated that. The whole thing was sad, and the whole point of the advertisement was to tell the American people that victory in Iraq is our only option. My heart goes out to this woman. I was close to a couple of my uncles, so I know what that loss can be like, and three years ago my wife died. I know how heart-wrenching that can be, too. For some reason this woman believes that if we go on killing people, in the long run that will make things better. What she forgets is that every innocent person killed in Iraq has loved ones, too. They have husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers, who hurt every bit as much as this woman when their loved one is killed. Neither does she seem to understand or recognize that the death and maiming of more American sons and fathers and mothers and uncles who are serving in the military over there will not bring honor to her husband's death. And, yes, there will be many more deaths. How can she think that the deaths to come are justification for her husband's death? This woman doesn't know it, but by being in that commercial, she is part and parcel of George Bush's, and the Military Industrial Complex's snow job to keep the war going in Iraq. Every week that George Bush can keep this war going, there are thousands of millions of dollars worth of sales for our Merchants of Death, who make immoral profits off the killing of innocent Iraqi civilians and the killing of our own children and family members in uniform. So, sad to say, the same people who paid for this ad, most likely made a profit off of the death of this woman's husband, her child's father, and their grief. To think that America can only go on killing to defeat terrorism proves to us that the terrorists have already won this war. Most "experts" agree that world-wide there are perhaps as many as ten thousand terrorists. That is ten thousand divided up into twenty, maybe thirty or more countries. They have no infrastructure like military bases, no ships, no planes, no uniforms, and no tanks or trucks or advertising departments. A terrorist cell can form with little or no money. They can not be defeated like a national army. Terrorists are fanatics who are fighting for any of a number of reasons. They might be on the side of the Palestinians, and they hate us for backing Israel. They might be fighting to get our troops off their holy ground. They might be fighting because we back the dictator or despot who rules over them and their families. They might be fighting us because our military occupies their homeland, or they might be fighting us because they have seen immorality portrayed in Hollywood movies and our television shows, and have decided that America truly is the Great Satan. You and I know in our hearts that the American people as a whole are good people. We are a people who are willing to come to the aide of anybody who needs our help and asks for it. However the world does not see us that way. We are the country that has attacked Lebanon, Granada, Haiti, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, The Congo, The Dominican Republic, Thailand, Libya, Panama, El Salvador, Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. These are the countries we know about, and yes, they are classified as wars. The veterans of these conflicts are eligible to join our Veterans of Foreign Wars fraternal organization. However, keep in mind, there are many other conflicts of which we are never informed. Washington will tell you that in many of these wars, we were asked to help out by the government of the country involved, but then we have to remember that Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran were once our friends, and that we supplied both of them with the weapons and technology needed to suppress any democratic movement in their countries. Who can forget the School of the Americas, where for decades we have been teaching Latin American dictators and their armies how to torture and suppress their people? Also, remember how the Iranian students who captured our embassy in Terhan spent a year putting back together the torture instruction manuals we had shredded that were developed for the Shah's secret police. Even today there is Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq with those horrible photos, but remember that there were hundreds of other photos that Washington decided were too horrible for the American people to see. We don't really know all of what went on there, but for sure every Iraqi knows by now, and by now every terrorist recruiter does, too. The American people are good, but Washington is not the American people. Neither is the defense industry that has made many American businessmen incredibly wealthy over the years by killing and maiming millions of innocent people all over the globe. Every time we kill someone's son or daughter we make another life-long enemy, and that life-long enemy will support terrorism directed against us for the rest of their lives. Every day there are sons and daughters of innocent Iraqis being killed. We can tell those people that it is the insurgents who have killed their loved ones, but they know who started this war. The United States of America attacked Iraq. That, sad to say, is the truth. Post Script: A headline on http://www.antiwar.com/ . . ."Wednesday Attacks Kill 10 US Troops, 35 Iraqis" |
BACK to the 2007 Politics Columns.