- How do you trust a country that cannot keep its word?
-
- How do you trust a country that allows decisions to be
made by leaders not elected for their integrity, but because their beliefs
were accepted by "the party" that chose them to be their candidate,
and "the party" had enough money to finance the campaign?
-
- How do you trust a country that says it supports you
for standing for what it believes in, and then turns its back on you unless
you sing your own praises, and publicize your accomplishments, and tell
your supporters how wonderful they are for the warm feelings they give
you?
-
- How do you trust a country that allows a soldier who
refuses to participate in war crimes to be sent to prison for 15 months,
and allows a slap on the hand for soldiers who burn bodies, desecrate religious
material and openly abuse a culture they do not understand?
-
- How do you trust a people when there are those who believe
that the greatest way to protest the indiscretions of our administration
is to commit flagrant, planned indiscretions of their own?
-
- How do you trust a people when there are those who believe
that the way to encourage our administration to uphold the laws and constitution
of our land is to act in a way that disrespects the laws and constitution
of our land?
-
- How do you trust a people when there are those who claim
to be fighting against the "big money politics," grandstanding
and negative tactics of those in the administration who needlessly sent
our soldiers to die who use "big money politics," grandstanding,
and negative tactics to plead their case?
-
- How do you trust a country whose actions do not match
its words?
-
- How do you wake a country that refuses to believe?
-
- How do you wake a country that stares injustice in the
face, and simply walks on by?
-
- How do you wake a country where torture, child abuse
and needless murders happen on a daily basis and tell them before
we can begin to clean another's house, we'd better be cleaning ours?
-
- How do you heal a country that has not seen its open,
bleeding wounds?
-
- How do you heal a country when its people close their
eyes to the pain, struggles and emotional turmoil of the soldiers who have
volunteered their lives to keep these people safe?
-
- How do you love a country that only knows the word and
not the meaning?
-
- How do you love a country that claims moral integrity,
and yet sends its sons and daughters to war without question?
-
- How do you love a country where parents believe in the
honor of their children dying in their name where parents go on living
because of the sacrifice their sons and daughters made, and see nothing
wrong with burying children who died to keep their parents "free"?
-
- How do you believe the word of people who say they speak
for the common good, and then erect monuments to their efforts before their
efforts have achieved a thing except publicity for themselves and their
name?
-
- How do you save a country that does not want to save
itself?
-
- How do you save a people that allows their government
to prepare for war prepare to send their sons and daughters to die
with so little regard for their lives that they don't demand a review
of the intelligence for war until THREE YEARS AFTER they make that final,
fatal decision, and thousands have died?
-
- How do you save a people when they do not demand
BEFORE their sons' and daughters' lives are put in harm's way that
they see irrefutable proof that there is no other choice?
-
- How do you save a people who blame their government for
the decisions it makes the government that is elected by the people,
answerable to the people as determined by the founding documents of this
country?
-
- How do you save a country that allows innocent men, women
and children of a country it willingly invaded to die in a war they did
not instigate?
-
- How do you save a country that is not yet outraged over
attempts to justify the need to keep torture tactics "on the books"
as a tool for gathering intelligence and yet declare themselves moral
and just?
-
- How do you save a country where people declare themselves
free to choose, and yet lock a man in prison for freely making a choice?
-
- How do you have faith in a country that allows your husband
to go to jail for speaking freely, for taking a principled stand
and doesn't demand justice, but rather says to "remember he is sacrificing
for the cause, his sacrifice is for the good of all, he stands for freedom"?
-- Where the people who claim to honor another's sacrifice, give nothing
but lip service to the "cause"?
-
- You do it because doing anything else would be
to lower your standards to a place you will not allow yourself to go
in spite of the broken promises of others. And you hope that you
touch one who understands one more who will do all that they can,
except sacrifice themselves for a cause that has become as much of an illusion
as the cause it was meant to stand against.
-
- Sgt. Kevin Benderman is currently serving a 15-month
sentence at Ft. Lewis WA, as a Prisoner of Conscience, for declaring himself
a Conscientious Objector to war against the Army's wishes. Please
visit www.BendermanDefense.org and www.BendermanTimeline.com for more information.
-
- Monica may be reached at mdawnb@coastalnow.net
-
|
