- As I'm writing this, news reports are coming in of at
least 15 U.S. troops - - heartsick American mothers' precious sons -- being
killed in an Iraqi helicopter shoot down.
-
- Yesterday I attended a peace rally focused on the central
demand of immediately ending Bush's obscene occupation of Iraq.
-
- Predictably, our "Out Now!" demand elicited
objection from some.
-
- Despite acknowledging that weapons of mass destruction
were never found and that other manipulative rationales for going to war
never panned out, those folks tenaciously maintain we can't "cut and
run" because doing so would "precipitate chaos".
-
- Tell that to the ghosts of the young soldiers -- kids,
actually -- who felt unimaginable terror as their damaged helicopter hurtled
to the ground.
-
- Tell it to the other Americans yet to die. The ones who'll
make grim history by becoming the victims of that cataclysmic Iraqi equivalent
of the Beirut Marine barracks bombing that we all know will surely come
if we don't promptly terminate Dick Cheney's oily wet dream.
-
- I'm fed up not just with the Bush gang's bald-faced lies
used to promote this sinister war.
-
- I'm also tired of how ordinary people who know the truth
in their heart of hearts are meekly unwilling to speak out in numbers sufficient
to stop the bloody madness. We've got to find the spine to act on what
reality savagely tells us. Are we not the home of the brave?
-
- There is a pivotal truth every American absolutely needs
to acknowledge:
-
- No fundamental difference exists between Bush's unprovoked
attack on Iraq in 2003 and Hitler's unprovoked attack on Poland in 1939.
Or Mussolini's aggression of Ethiopia in 1936.
-
- In all three cases, governments beholden to rightwing/reactionary
interests blatantly violated international law and the very soul of human
morality, using outrageous pretexts to dupe domestic populaces into supporting
their crimes.
-
- It's taken just a few months for falsehood-transparency
to emerge in the U.S. regarding Iraq, but it took until WWII's end before
the German people discovered that the alleged Polish "provocations"
which supposedly triggered their nation's response were actually carried
out by Nazi party operatives dressed in purloined Polish uniforms. It would
be foolish for us to assume that no such deceptive activities are beyond
the present American administration...either already committed, or about
to be (as Bush grows more desperate for re-election success).
-
- Nothing good can come from something as totally wrong
as the White House's profit and power grab in Iraq. Bringing that travesty
to a complete undoing is the only intellectually and ethically responsible
course of action.
-
- A few years ago I visited my grandparents' graves in
my hometown cemetery.
-
- While there, I also viewed the local war memorial, a
large granite wall bearing the names of young men who'd perished in battle
overseas in various conflicts.
-
- I was deeply troubled to notice that a section of the
monument's right side had been left blank, providing space for more names
to be added in future wars that were obviously thought to be inevitable.
-
- Why is that? Why do we not practice the art of diplomacy
through a Department of Peace, such as presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich
envisions?
-
- Will the Leninists be proven correct, confident in their
view that increasingly monopolized capitalism will inexorably lead to escalating
exploitation of working masses, and endless wars in which poor and minority
youth are routinely sacrificed for rich, old, white men's profits?
-
- Maybe this helicopter incident won't be the straw to
break neo-colonialism's rampant belligerency. Perhaps Bush, Cheney and
Rumsfeld can weasel their way out of this one, too, setting the stage for
the much larger, abrupt loss of American life that will add new names to
war memorials left blank on someone's unhealthy expectation that wars (including
the most needless and dirty) will always be with us.
-
- But I certainly hope, with fervent passion and patriotism
to right ideals, that these horrible, Sunday-morning sacrifices of Americans
who should be enjoying life at home with their families instead of having
been turned to mangled, burnt flesh in far off Iraq...will mark a decisive
turning point.
-
- The warmongers' madness must stop.
-
- May we all find our voices and say exactly that in a
thunderous chorus so loud that it brings even the highest flying hawks
fearfully back to earth.
-
- "Out Now!"
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- Dennis Rahkonen, from Superior, WI, has written progressive
commentary and verse for various outlets since the '60s. He can be reached
at <mailto:dennisr@cp.duluth.mn.us>dennisr@cp.duluth.mn.us
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- http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=13616&mode=nested&order=0
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