- CounterPunch.org - https://www.counterpunch.org -

A Second Chance

 

The buckets of blood that doused America this week, iftheyawaken it from it’s two-year stupor, might not have been spilled in vain. Perhaps it still can be a “wonderful life,” or at least notsuch a damna horrible one. Perhaps, like George Bailey, we’ll cry out “I want to live again!” and really mean it, and the world will be given a second chance.

Leave it to Bush to make a hero out of a petty tyrant like Saddam, who may well be remembered as the man who checked American aggression, the man who saved the planet from Shock and Awe and a bevy of “preemptive wars.” But then, it’s an old story. At least as old as “Frankenstein.” The monster George Bush Sr., Cheney, Rumsfeld and company helped create, by turning on it’s masters, may give the rest of us a chance to save the world from both.

What do they always tell us on the News, that you gotta stand up to these Hitler types? Well guess what? If George Bush Inc. is not stopped IMMEDIATELY, the unchecked aggression against his imaginary “axis of evil” and god knows who else will plunge the planet into even more ghastly horrors than we’re witnessing in Iraq.

I read today that at least ten American marines had been killed, and I felt sick. But no sicker than at the news of the scores of Iraqi civilians bombed to oblivion by cruise missiles. And what about the “Iraqi boys” in uniform who, unlike our volunteer soldiers, didn’t have a choice as to whether to “serve” or not; didn’t have a choice on whether to fight or not. Didn’t have a choice but to stave off the invaders of their land?

Saddam is in his sixties. He won’t live forever. For those Iraqis who are against him — and they must be legion — there must be some hope in that. There is no hope whatsoever in an American invasion and the predictable occupation, puppet government, etc.

Can we Americans take the “leap of faith” — not even a leap, more of a hop really — to understand this? Would even the most ardent of Clinton haters during the “Monica-gate” scandal have preferred an invasion by the Chinese to settling the ridiculous affair “in house?” Would Nixon’s greatest enemies have preferred his removal by the Soviet Union? However much Iraqis may hate Saddam, what kind of humans would they be if they welcomed an American force that proposed to “liberate them” through tanks, machine guns and cruise missiles; occupy their country; and IMPOSE a new “democratic” regime?

Why were those marines killed? Why were those Iraqi soldiers and civilians killed? Why is this happening? Who on earth wants this? A very small but powerful minority.

But because this has proved to be not a “cake walk” over the bodies of Iraqis — which apparently was not enough to deter us — but a tragedy for both Americans and Iraqis, we might have an “out.” We might be able to stop this madness that has already swallowed up Afghanistan (remember them?) and, if proves to be a piece of cake, will open the way toward the next targets on Bush’s list.

Dammit. Wake up. If the Iraqis are so hell-bent on being liberated, why are they fighting off the invader?

Throw away that newspaper, the one that calls America and it’s sidekick, England, the “Allies.” Turn off those television androids who urge you to support our troops. Do they mean the dead ones? What if Congress had supported the troops a year ago by calling Bush Inc. into accountability, by refusing him the power to declare all war all the time? Then we’d certainly be able to support ALL of our troops, because they’d be alive. It’s extremely difficult, even for the most gung-ho of Flag Wavers, to support a man in a body bag.

The Hydra: like with the Vietnamese and other peoples fighting off foreign invaders, for every one the MAN kills, HE creates two more. If the MAN blows up your house and your family and kills all your friends and takes away your livelihood and you figure you don’t have anything left to live for anyway, might as well fight back — YOU are HIS enemy. Even though HE has no business on your side of the planet (let alone your hometown, the place you’ve lived all your life) to begin with.

Does this register? Do we have any understanding of how humans behave? We know how WE would behave if a foreign force invaded our country, can we take that great leap of imagination and PRETEND that the Iraqis are kinda human too?

Now is not the time to criticize the MAN and HIS media while adding that convenient escape clause for ourselves: “but the American people are a kind, generous people; they just don’t know the facts.” The facts are this: bombs are dropping on civilians who’ve done no harm to us whatsoever, on children who weren’t born yet when Saddam provoked Bush I to “stay the course.” “Our boys,” in addition to dropping the bombs, are getting killed. The Iraqi people may seek restitution and compensation, as well as prosecution of war criminals, but save that for a later date. Bush, Rumsfeld, Perle, Powell etc. will have their day in court, as will, hopefully Saddam, who I’m sure will have no problem ratting out the whole line, beginning with Reagan, Bush I and Cheney for all they did to aid and abet him in becoming “the beast of Baghdad.”

Open your minds to reality and close your senses to the bombardment of Media hacks giving their opinion of how “we” should “prosecute this war.” Whaddya mean we?

If “we” heed this call, this message that tells us we cannot simply bomb our way into any sovereign nation we choose and expect a native welcoming committee — waving little REDWHITEandBLUE flags and bearing delectable treats — to greet their American liberators, perhaps the scores, if not hundreds of people, soldiers and civilian, will not have died for no goddamn reason other than to feed the insatiable hunger for deception, violence and plunder of Bush Incorporated.

Shock and Awe. I believe when Hitler did it, it was called “Blitzkrieg. ”

ADAM ENGEL truly believes that WE THE PEOPLE can call this off if we act NOW. He can be reached at: asengel@attblobal.net

 

Today’s Features

Gary Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets of Cairo

Bill and Kathleen Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi

Bruce Jackson
Why Protest? Why Write?

Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on the War

Jason Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock Market

Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime

Gilad Atzmon
Strategic Blunders by American Generals

Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country

Website of the War
Iraq Body Count

Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!

home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /