Stoopid Stuff

We're all Ghouls Now

I just watched the "Tribute to 9/11 victims" they ran tonight, the last night of the Republican National Convention. And a great deal became clear to me. They present the attacks on America, and on Americans, as if they have no basis, no history, no reason, they are just a bunch of Muslims who hate us for no good reason. Maybe they just don't have anything better to do, they don't drink beer, so when they get bored they think "Hey, I dunno, there's nothing on TV, let's go kill some Americans".

Their response is we have to fight them. But it's so clear that that's stupid. It's so obvious that killing them, invading and occupying their countries, assassinating their leaders and starving their populations will only create more fighters who hate, not America, but American policies, and will continue to try to change those policies. Again, it's obvious that they don't have the leverage, the political or military or economic wherewithal to try to make America and The West and the UN LISTEN to their grievances, so they can see no option but to attack assymetrically, in the only way available to them.

Finally, at long last, to any thinking person, the answer is obvious. To try to kill them is to perpetuate the conflict. To try to find a way to live in peace with them, to respect their rights, their countries and their beliefs, to help them out of poverty, to help them educate their people and eradicate disease and develop their economies, these are a path to peace between our people.

Honestly, this is not really complex. Disgustingly, our governement recognizes these self-evident truths. But to coexist in peace with the Islamic Nations is not the goal. No more than the goal was ever to end the occupation of Iraq. The goal is a permanant state of war, and the costs in lives and treasure don't seem to matter.

What's truly important at this point is we stop providing cover to the parties on both sides who profit in so many ways from eternal warfare. Both bush/cheney and bin laden/zawahiri are quite happy with the current state of affairs. Neither can be concerned with the lives lost, the lives ruined, the hopeless, the homeless, the stateless.

When the answer is easy and it's hard to prolong the status quo, and yet the status quo is prolonged and the people aren't asking the simple, obvious questions, there's something truly wrong with the system. When the war destroys families and families don't actively work to end the war, when people rail against waste and ignore the waste of fighting a war that would simply end if we just quit fighting it - when death, poverty and disease is accepted and any peace intitiative is seen as weakness, it's the society itself that is sick.

posted by mikey @ 6:22 PM