Letter from Slim Wolfe
War on terror – April 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
I’d like to see bin Laden hung from the nearest tree, but at least as much, I’d like to see Bush hanging there as well. Note an armload of similarities to Hitler. Note the need to be military commander. (What other talents does he have, besides lying?) Note how conveniently this panic consolidated his power and everyone forgot the election.
Bush’s first words at the time of the crisis: Oh we’re not even gonna send the army, just a few commandos. (Clinton also told that kind of lie.) Then when it became clear that bin Laden wasn’t going to be a sitting duck (was he going to just wait politely while it took us a month to position those missiles in the Black Sea?) Bush & Co. needed a new objective so Americans could boost self-esteem through military action, thus the overthrow of the Taliban whom at one time we aided. The Taliban ain’t my idea of great government but neither is the Republican Party.
Meanwhile all this conveniently excuses the tightening of the noose on Homeland America. Note how Bush gloats every time he mentions throwing due process out the window. He seems to be counting on a rightwing support base who put God (or what they in their arrogance project as God) above the law. All this paranoia about foreign students and travelers just whips up hysteria and builds support for a fascist state, again, recall the psychologies used during the rise of the third Reich. After all, what good can a body-search do against a determined terrorist who can kill with his bare hands? I wouldn’t be surprised to see a pogrom come down on the American Muslims, there have already been hints. Focus on this and the public quickly forgets all the lies and corruption of domestic America.
Of course I regret all the deaths at the Trade Center as I regret all deaths by violence and America has sure caused plenty of those. But does anyone recall how it was that such fine and tempting targets came to rise. It was a contest of arrogance between new York and Chicago, to see which would have the tallest structure. While just a few miles away the money might have been used better to alleviate the squalid housing and poverty of millions. I wouldn’t want my kids in school and rubbing elbows socially with families who made their fortunes through such a prideful scheme any more than I’d want them growing up thinking women needed to keep to the kitchen. Frankly I can see a bit of truth in Islamic stricture against lending money, considering what sort of economy and social priorities we have here.
I think it’s ludicrous to wave the flag and champion our nation against any other part of the world. This is one world we all have to share and most of us are here in the middle of North America by accident of birth. I think the words, God Bless America, are positively pagan, as if God could be inveigled to tip the cosmic pool-table and make all the balls of one player fall in the pockets. Is this more noble than blind obedience to the will of Allah? Hardly.
Reportedly fifty-five percent of Americans take the bible to be the literal word of God, but concepts of love like turn the other cheek and judge not and thou shalt not kill and a raft of others seem just too damned inconvenient a lot of the time. I can see going to war in a situation like Pearl Harbor, but this is a whole lot different. Lots of advanced civilized nations live without war simply by keeping within their own borders; the nations which have got themselves into the most wars and violence are the nations which have needed to expand their spheres of influence globally: China, Persia, Rome, Ottomans, Russia, England, France, Germany, USA, will probably keep butting heads until they learn to keep it simple, while Denmark, Switzerland, Canada, etc., can contain themselves and so suffer the least from world conflict. War doesn’t have to be a part of human nature but through greed and need of domination we repeatedly get ourselves into corners from which war appears the only way
The reason you don’t find the sort of dialog you might wish regarding this or other issues of national policy may be that people receive most of their information in predigested form from TV and have most of their analytical processes farmed out to news agencies, government and computer: thinking and analysis takes too much time and effort, detracting from energy needed to pay off those loans for new vehicles and trophy homes. I guess that is the price we pay for living in a free country: People are free to be just plain ignorant.
And how many years do we suppose it will be before we think we need to send another force into Afghanistan to replace the government which we are now putting in? We all know the history of puppet governments and various colonial schemes worldwide but keep making the same mistakes. America started out with high ideals long ago, but now find ourselves thinking and acting like King George III, 1775.
Slim Wolfe
Villa Grove