Cune Magazine
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Cune Magazine |
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NOT IN OUR NAME! Fred A. Wilcox September 11, 2001. I am watching commercial airliners smash into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Bones slip from my body, boiling water gushes into my brain, and I race back to my office where I pound my telephone's keys, getting only blank space, dead air, no sound. Two of my children live in New York. They have cell phones. I hit their numbers. Dead space. I sob, pace my office, dial numbers, silence. Six hours later, my son answers his cell phone. He is fine. He does not tell me that he watched the towers burn and crash. He does not know, yet, what all this means. "I love you," I say again and again. That night I watch planes explode into the World Trade Center towers. Once, twice, ten times. Day after day, night after night, I keep watching. The media scan the Middle East, searching for people who might be celebrating the deaths of thousands of Americans (it turns out that people from 80 countries died in the attack). At last, some enterprising news team finds a scattering of Palestinians celebrating somewhere in the occupied territories. Could it be a wedding, a birthday party? No, the media assures millions of frightened, angry, American citizens. These Arabs are gloating over our tragedy. Other Arabs are applauding Osama bin Laden and the men who flew the suicide mission on 9/11. This shows how little people in the Middle East think of Americans. This demonstrates how cruel people in the Middle East can be. I am teaching a seminar on violence/nonviolence, and students who wrote, just last week, that they would never harm anyone now want to commit mass murder. I tell them that I understand what they are feeling. On the morning of 9/ll, I wanted to attack someone. I wanted to kill someone. I wanted revenge. But then, stepping back from my terror and rage, I began to ask why anyone would be willing to kill themselves and so many innocent people on a beautiful September morning. Who were the hijackers? What were they hoping to accomplish? Soon, government officials commenced their litany: "They—people in the Middle East—hate America because we are free. They hate us because we live in a democracy. They want the freedom we have. They are jealous of who we are. They are willing to kill innocent Americans because the United States symbolizes everything that's good and noble in the world." In a speech to the nation, George W. Bush declared that 60 different countries might be harboring terrorists who want to kill Americans, destroy our way of life, bring us to our knees. These people—many of whom live in the Middle East—must be hunted down, brought to justice or killed. Through some peculiar leap of logic, Mr. Bush concluded that a group of people in Afghanistan were responsible for 9/11. Somehow, these Taliban had helped plot mass murder in New York City. Moreover, these evil men were harboring Osama bin Laden. Either they hand him over to the United States, or Mr. Bush would send an armada of aircraft to kill all of them. Mr. Bush kept his promise, and thousands of Afghani civilians were blown to pieces, many "suspected" Taliban were killed outright, while others were packed into metal containers where they suffocated. Osama slipped away, and Mr. Bush declared victory in Afghanistan. In late winter 2003, the mightiest empire the world has ever seen is preparing to launch a massacre in Iraq. According to George W. Bush, this slaughter of civilians will demonstrate to the world that the United States abhors violence. Destroying Baghdad will show the world that the United States will not stand for tyranny. Killing Saddam Hussein, his family, and all of his followers will convince despots in other countries that the United States of America is a civilized nation dedicated to the ideals of democracy. Killing tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens will convince settlers in Gaza and the West Bank to stop stealing land from Palestinians and agree to a Palestinian state. Many people believe that George W. Bush is a dumb puppet whose strings are being pulled by intelligent people like Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condalesa Rice. Mr. Bush's cabinet is crowded with Machiavellian figures, most of whom appear to be suffering from terminal hubris. But the resident in the White House resembles the late "Teflon don" John Gotti, more than he does Pinocchio. Mr. Bush does not have to know who wrote "King Lear." Like Mr. Gotti, he is willing to use bribery, extortion, and murder to get what he wants. Like Mr. Gotti, he surrounds himself with a coterie of henchmen willing to enforce his orders by any means necessary. The Bush administration is determined to turn parts of the Middle East into a parking lot in order to advance its plans for a new world order in which the United States will launch preemptive strikes against, read destroy, any nation that dares to defy our wishes. To the white collar Mafioso in Washington, D.C., mountains of dead and maimed Arabs are merely collateral damage, the price the world must pay if it wishes to reap the benefits of American "democracy." Watching Mr. Bush speak to the American Enterprise Institute on February 26, 2003, one could not help but think of Big Brother in George Orwell's prophetic novel, 1984. “War is peace, love is hate, ignorance is strength,” said Mr. Bush. The United States of America will kill more innocent people in the Middle East in order to liberate them from tyranny. And when the smoke clears and the bodies are bulldozed into mass graves, the world will applaud this nation for the sacrifices it has made to save the Iraqi people from a fate worse than death. George W. Bush is a megalomaniac who is so hypnotized by his own rhetoric that he can not see what the consequences for the Middle East, for our nation, and for the world will be when he gives the military a green light to attack the Iraqi people. Like the men who flew those planes into the World Trade Center towers, Mr. Bush believes in the efficacy, indeed the religious purity, of mass murder. In this way, he and the man, Saddam Hussein, he so desperately wants to kill are brothers in spirit. From the ashes of Mr. Hussein's burned out palaces, hatred and revenge will rise, poisoning the hearts and minds of people in the Middle East and other parts of the world. The American empire may spread its wings and blow into the trumpet of mad victory, but we the people will never feel safe again. Not because of the prophecies of Osama bin Laden, but because a small number of ideological fanatics, most of whom were not elected to office, are determined to commit crimes against humanity in the name of fighting terrorism. Mr. Bush and friends may claim a great moral victory in Iraq, but the world will conclude that the indiscriminate killing of civilians is terrorism. All over Mother Earth, tens of millions of human beings are shouting, singing, chanting: NOT IN OUR NAME! As an American citizen, father of four children, writer, and college professor, I want to applaud these beautiful demonstrators. The Iraqi people are our brothers and sisters, and no one has the right to murder them.
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