It has been five years. Five years, God Damn it, and
nobody has asked the question! Five years, and nobody has even attempted to open dialog on the most fundamental enquiry resulting from the September, 11 attacks. So here, allow me to be the first:
What have we done, as a nation, that would push men and women so far that they are willing to give their lives in order to take ours? A man does not strap a bomb around his chest and blow himself to bits for no reason. And don't regurgitate this "40 virgins" crap, because most fundamental Christians believe in streets paved in Gold and a city in the clouds, yet I don’t see some 45-year-old father from Ohio wrapping himself up in dynamite and blowing up the Iranian embassy.
WHY did they do it? Did anyone stop and think that, perhaps, maybe, possibly, the United States government, and the United States cultural and economic hegemony might have finally pushed these people too far? When someone says you can't have something, then turns and gives it to the person standing next to you, for seemingly no other reason than that the other person practices a different religion, would that not anger you? Folks, I am talking about the right to use nuclear power and build nuclear weapons.
On one hand we have been telling the Middle East that they cannot use nuclear power and cannot possess nuclear weapons. We used their soldiers as pawns during the Cold War and left them high and dry after they helped us push back the Soviet front. Then we follow that up with every sanction known to man, put up McDonalds on every street corner, and promote instability so our fat, white, rich oil moguls would have leverage over the war lords and corrupt business people of the region.
On the OTHER hand, we provide their neighbor (Israel) with weapons, money, training, and the right to have nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Then we, the same country who dropped the atomic bomb on two major Japanese cities, killing hundreds of thousands of INNOCENT LIVES in seconds, have the gull, the audacity, to pretend that terrorists have no legitimate political agenda, that they are below us for their acts of terrorism and taking innocent lives.
Don’t get me wrong, taking innocent life for political motives is a disgusting act. But that is precisely what we did in Hiroshima, and it is precisely what Bush is doing in Iraq right now! And if you think he is trying to "protect" us, think again. Ask yourself whether we are safer now than we were the day after September, 11. Why are we in Iraq? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We have all the proof in the world that Iraq was not tolerant of Al Qaeda prior to our invasion. But they sure the hell are now!
President Bush has used you. He has used your fear, patriotism and sympathy to further his own agenda. The result, five years after the attack on our World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, is that we are more hated than every before. In other words, we are in greater danger than ever before.
He looked at the elite war lords of America (I say war lords, because they make their money and build their corporate empires on war) and said "
Some people call you the elite. But I call you my base." What do you think he meant by that statement?
Let me ask one more time:
What have we done to "these people" that would make them want to take their own life in exchange for taking ours?
Answer that, and you will know how to bring peace to the Middle East.My heart does go out to the family members who are today mourning the loss of loved ones five years ago. The people who did this deserve to be brought to justice, regardless of their motives, just as the people who pushed them to do this need to be brought to justice, especially because of their motives.
George W. Bush and his rich friends do not care about you. They put on a good act, but actions speak louder than words and their actions in regard to capturing Osama Bin Laden have been but a whisper compared to their actions in regard to pushing up stock prices for Halliburton, lining the pockets of the oil and gas industry, and using fear to take away our civil liberties, such as the right to privacy, right to fair trials, and protection from illegal search and seizure.
The Bush administration is not on your side. They are on their own side. But the true patriots are here, and we are growing by numbers and by anger every day. How long? Not long. Because what you reap, is what you sow.
