Draw Your Opponent In
Bush's New American Genocide
We always want to think that our enemies have no brains. That is a fatal error. The terrorists are terrible people. We must not give them an opening. Osama Bin Laden has proven himself a tactical genius. Taking all the time he needed to attack the towers and then laying back and letting the swaggering Americans foolishly enter into his lair. Now what does he do? A new video. Makes it think he supports Kerry. Why? What Osama really wants is Bush. Why? Bush and Rumsfeld rushed into Bagdhad, leaving cache after cache of munitions along the road. The terrorists simply followed and picked up guns and explosives. Now they kill us with our own weapons.
While we marched triumphantly into Bagdhad, we kicked out the UN Observers who were keeping nuclear warhead explosives and sarin rockets secure. Where do you think those are now? So, reverse psychology. All the terrorist leaders are making statements that seem they support Kerry. It's like Karate. Draw your opponent in and he will fall. Bush and Rumsfeld already have 1100 Americans dead in Iraq, mostly after declaring "Mission Accomplished." The blood is on their hands. Bush and Rumsfeld opened up the country to infiltrating terrorists. Bin Laden said, "Stupid Americans. I can bend them at my will." And he has.
Well, we are not stupid. We are Americans. We will not continue down the same road. Bin Laden is desperate to keep Kerry out because he knows Kerry will finish them. And he will.
Whether intended or not, the United States invasion of Iraq has led directly to 100,000 civilian deaths according to a current study done at Johns Hopkins University and to be published next week in The Lancet, a leading British medical journal. These are not terrorists killed. These are not soldiers. These are people like you and me. Our children. Our brothers and sisters.
Let us not minimize the 1100 of our own dead in Iraq, but let us neither ignore that our kill ratio now approximates 120:1! Is this moral? This is—like all genocide—immoral. Let us not minimize the damage of the Saddam Hussein regime, but let us neither minimize Bush and Cheney's part.
This is information that the undecided and the Republican voter need to know before they go to the polls. So disseminate the facts to all your sources now and in letters to your local newspapers. We can't just share this amongst ourselves who already understand and vote for a decent Democratic government. Volunteer at your local Democratic headquarters. Speak to voters before they get to the booths. We must allow the voters to see what Bush and Cheney hide in their secret files—who allow that torture and sexual deviance is permissible. It is not permissible. It is not moral. It is not my dream of the family values of America.
Bush attacked a country that had no terrorists—that did not attack us—because Dick Cheney wanted to attack. Bush let the terrorist who attacked us—Bin Laden—escape into the hills of Afghanistan.
This is—like a Schartzenager killing film—a fantasy of blood and death. This is—like a chain saw massacre—a Halloween of terror and loss. But it is true. It is—more than reality TV—real. Death, here, is in somebody's living room. And it could as easily be yours. Not a movie, these killings really hurt.
We can avoid the ugliness. Not write about it. We can tell writers to silence their words. But the truth is we kill and rape. And we needed to act on that yesterday. If we didn't stop it yesterday, it will be us who experience it today. So when we go to an unfounded war, and we kill and rape the people, we create terrorists of the victim's angry daughters and angry sons. No, terrorists are no better than we. Their killing is ungodly too. That does not justify our behavior. In Iraq, we did not just attack a dictator. We attacked the people of that country, and we are no better than they.
This is terror. No less, no more than 9/11. No more than the deaths of innocent victims in Abu Ghraib, civilians in Fallujah or in Baghdad, whose survivors now see themselves as patriots, fighting the invading enemy of the United States. This is not who I want us to be.
I see America as the land of the free, a populace with hearts of compassion. And I will not only vote for leadership who support my ideals, but I will show others the factual evidence so we can make good decisions together.
And another thing. I want our leaders to not only not be negative, but to act responsibly at home and around the world.
In Darfur Arab militia kill and rape. This is where our leadership must shine. We as a nation can be mentors for world values. Bring an end to terror wherever its ugly head is seen. Instead we stand back and do practically nothing, putting up a show of help while our brothers and sisters cry. It is at a distance from us so we do not feel it. Sure, we sympathize. We think we comprehend the awfulness. Colin Powell representing the neo con-men sits in beaurocratic morass, slowly negotiating. "Slow" does not cut it when your dress is torn off at the end of a soldier's bayonet. But when it comes to taking over the oil fields of Iraq, we are quick to act, destroying a people to have oil for our cars. We do not feel it… unless it is us. So imagine yourself a Darfur tribal woman. Five Arab soldiers took their turns on your body yesterday morning to impregnate you with Arab blood—to dilute your child's gene pool of its pure tribal roots. Your husband is ill from the stab wound he received two days ago. He could not protect you and lies in fever and despair. You make a plan. At 3 a.m. you dress and slip out quietly with four of your friends, water jugs in hand to keep your little family alive. Avoid the rapists by going out while they sleep. Slowly making your way through the underbrush, you imagine you hear sounds. But no one is there. The five of you come to the water hole and load up successfully, ready to nurture thirsty children and a suffering man.
Coming to the end of the brush, each of you look around to the open clearing, but peace is not to be, for as you step out, it is then that the soldiers reveal themselves. Ten of them silently and suddenly surrounding you, leering, quickly huddling you into a helpless group making their intentions known.
"But this is only an image on television. It is a TV drama and not something that I will ever experience. I am American. White. Cannot be hurt. These tribal females have no more feelings than the turkey we huddle into a helpless gaggle to slaughter for dinner."
A hand bruises your arm. "STOP!" Your scream is useless. Your water poured onto the parched earth, soaked into nurtured dirt as seed is spilled into you from wasted sex and wasted love. Why don't you just die. The second man slaps you as he pierces what used to be a delicate and loving part of your body. And as tears flow, a third man rolls you over. It is like the knife that entered your husband, and you suddenly remember an innocent childhood that your progeny will never have.
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Dr. Paul Aaron's publications include: "White Flower" and "Our Blessed Love Enduring." "Catastrophizing" was performed by the Deep Dish Theater Company at the Cornucopia House Cancer Support Center in 2003.
In 1971, Dr. Aaron began teaching Yoga and meditation. In 1972 he became the owner of Manna Fest Station, a natural foods macrobiotic restaurant. The Journals of Manna Fest Station are in his plans to publish next year. Organic gardening is still the way of his family’s kitchen table and he continues teaching in the fields of Nutrition and Meditation.
Graduating cum laude from Logan College of Chiropractic in 1983, Aaron practiced Chiropractic and Acupuncture until the point that Democracy and writing demanded all his attention.
