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Lament for America

Tod Zankert | 17.04.2003 04:48

Should Americans die in terror attacks now, they will themselves be responsible for baiting their enemies. Why? The U.S. Administration is overwhelmingly supported by the American people. Americans have supported the ruling junta, giving up many of their most basic liberties for some temporary security...this is time to lament what America has become....


   No excuse for it. None. America's form of unconventional and illegal war against its enemies, is repugnant. Our war on 'terrorism' is not going to bring American's more stability, but in the end will only bring more terror to our shores.   
    I lament that the so-called 'war on terrorism' will undermine budding democracies in the developing world. Who will support or nurture democracy when America--which in the minds of many oppressed peoples represented the mythic City on the Hill--has an M-16 at the top, firing away at those who do not to capitulate to America's latest blue-blood edicts?
   President Bush said, "You are either with us or against us," in this war. In other words, should any of us dissent from these edicts, we are aligned with terrorists? Is this democracy?
   While the U.S. president speaks endlessly of liberating marked countries, and 'giving them democratic leadership,' he does not act as a man who loves the democratic process. He calls those leaders he disagrees with "pygmies," crudely denigrating those countries that refuse to play into America's role as the single world, imperial power as "evil."
   What, do we have a man who believes himself in a messianic role, at the helm of the most powerful nation on earth? Is this born-again Christian subverting the Gospel of the Prince of Peace to wage war on any country that does not square with his ultimatums? Does anyone, seeing this unconscionable bigotry, lament what America has become?
   I firmly believe that the day is coming when the now-President Bush as his cronies will be indicted at the World Court for Crimes Against Humanity, in the Hague. But now I lament that in fighting terrorism, the U.S. has become the foremost terrorist state, dividing the immortal soul of the world into pieces, mere booty of war for a few corporate monopolies. It is the old trap, you know, if you use unethical means to achieve what may well be a good end, you become in the process the very evil you hope to fight. The saying, Spit in the wind and it will come back on you, is apropos.
   September 11, 2001, after all, did not occur from out of a vacuum. Is it any wonder that most of those who committed terror on that fateful day, were Saudi's? Yet had anyone in our leadership, so long as the oil was flowing from Saudi Arabia, dared to publicly lament that this important U.S. ally is among the least democratic countries on earth?
   What I lament more than the Bush junta, shamelessly breaking the icons of America's greatness? The American people. The majority of Americans are en masse, celebrating victory in Iraq. They feel secure, but I lament--even if the country is more secure--what Americans have given up for this security.
   Should Americans die in terror attacks now, they will themselves be responsible for baiting their enemies. Why? The U.S. Administration is overwhelmingly supported by the American people. Americans have supported the ruling junta, giving up many of their most basic liberties for some temporary security.
   As Americans run about like bullies in the streets, arrogantly redefining their position in the world, this is no time for celebration. This is no time for 'My country, right or wrong.' This is the time to lament what America has become.

Tod Zankert
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