MEDIA ROULETTE
February 22, 2003
Support our Troops (Don't Mass Cremate Them)
HOBOKEN, N.J. -- Go to Google News and type in "city antiwar resolution". You'll get resolutions being introduced all over the country.Some of them, like in Hoboken, NJ, are defeated by misguided men who fashion themselves patriots. And in some cases it's little more than fashion -- and marketing. (See NJ.com)
One Councilman John Carey is quoted by NJ.com as saying that supporting U.S. troops "was the most important thing we can do". That's all very nice, and of course it is a perfect statement for a politician because no sane person could ever argue against that policy. But let's look at what we are really talking about.
Recent articles about programs the Pentagon has been leaking as "trial balloons" show us that the men who plan to send our troops into battle are also planning to bulldoze them into mass graves or mass-cremate them.
Okay, now you who say you want to support our troops: is this what you mean? Is this what you want to send them to? In some ways, the death part of it is not even the worst of it. There are many scenarios in which the survivors envy the dead.
And also worthy of the same considerations are the innocent Iraqi families who have committed no wrong against the United States. Are they deserving of the military holocaust that is about to be perpetrated upon them by United States?
Does the plain logic that leads many times over to the conclusion that the attack on Iraq is largely a matter of oil possibly compel us to consider that maybe it really is about oil, and reconsider whether "supporting our troops" means supporting this war.
I think the time for empty rhetoric like that is over. It's time to stand up for what is right. It is time to stand up against an unprovoked war against an impoverished country. I'm ashamed of Americans who can't think for themselves and have the courage to follow their thoughts to their obvious conclusions and see that this war is very wrong. It is time to stand up for peace.
I'm tired of people who want to send other people to war. I say if you believe in this war so much, then what are you doing here? You should pick up a rifle, pull on some hiking boots and get out there in the desert. I say if you're willing to shed blood for it, then you should be out there.
And just because you were out there before doesn't allow you to stand back and take no position on young men being sent off to a living hell for an unjustified attack on innocent people? If you believe in it now, then go now. This country has seen enough of armchair tough guys.
The whole world is rising up against this war. This gang of lunatics is forcing the United States to become complicit in war crimes. Once you have participated in unjustly shed blood, it weakens your moral resolve for future challenges. We are being conditioned to be compliant, and to stand back while our government carries out mass slaughter, conquest and plunder. I see no other more appropriate words.
Not just Americans, but people throughout the world have demonstrated their solidarity and their resolve against this war. And the people have demonstrated to themselves their power as a collective entity. We can stop this world. We can stop the momentum of events now in progress. By merely not participating in the plan for world domination, not cooperating, not being compliant, by recognizing the illegitimacy of the present government and its policies and acting accordingly, we can end this nightmare.
They are winging it. They don't know if this is going to work or not. They thought they had thought of everything, but the devil fools with the best-laid plans. We have to show them that it is not going to work. We have to make sure that it doesn't. We can show them that we the majority of moderate, ordinary, rational and humane people do not want war unless it is absolutely necessary to protect the nation from attack. And that we will not put up with a hijacking of the government, the subversion of constitution and democratic values and the erection of a dictatorship in the Land of the Free. I have my doubts whether the great majority is going to allow that to happen.
We know the kind of economic impact we can have. Just by not buying something, we can exert a tidal wave of force. We have to organize our buying power and focus it in a way that has impact, and only support businesses that do not participate in the profits of the mass production of death.
If the so-called powers that be ignore the will of the people, then we will have to speak louder.
We can stop this military machine's drive to war. We can dismantle the corporate dictatorship. We can stop the system. We are the creators of the wealth that the Bush oligarchy is using to push the world around. We do not have to contribute.
If we are organized and coordinated, through our collective intelligence and will, we can -- as we showed on February 15 -- move the world.