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Freedom RiderAmerican Terroristsby Margaret Kimberley BAR Editor and Senior Columnist"Killing is helping, ending the killing is a bad thing."We should have finished the job. We have to take out Saddam. We can't take the military option off the table. We can't pull out until we are finished. The last statement is particularly insidious. It seems like a bad advertisement for Viagra, but it isn't funny at all. It is a justification for killing people and it isn't coincidental that the imagery is sexual in nature. Don't finish until the desire to kill is completely satisfied. All of these words are heard so often and appear to be so bland that too few ever question them. They are statements that make individuals complicit when governments promote criminal behavior and death. Killings committed by individuals are denounced, renounced and called evil. It was evil to kill nearly 3,000 human beings on September 11th but it was equally evil for the U.S. military to kill the same number in Afghanistan in revenge. This article continues below the white box
Terrorism is really just a fancy word for murder. It is usually meant to describe murder committed by people whose political demands have not been addressed, people without governments and armies at their disposal. It is time to expand the definition to include governments representing "good" people. Good people need to remember that violent death is the same, wherever it takes place. The dead in Afghanistan and Iraq are no less dead than New Yorkers on 9/11. They died in fear and anguish. Their families didn't grieve less and were no less affected by their absence. Their lives were no less important than American lives. That is a radical idea in this country. Compassion takes a back seat when racial and national supremacy are accepted as being right and good. "Compassion takes a back seat when racial and national supremacy are accepted as being right and good."The result is a cynical, criminal deception that causes otherwise rational people to advocate killing. The justification is always made to seem benevolent. Stopping the spread of communism is passe, but ending the rule of tyrants, or stopping a supposed threat to America are excuses still very much in vogue. Thousands of Iraqis have been killed in order to save them from life under the rule of an evil dictator. There is a very sick logic at work here. Dead people are certainly not living under Saddams rule anymore. Iraq is in worse shape under Americas occupation than under Saddam's rule. The dead are certainly worse off. No matter what they felt about their government, they would certainly have chosen life, just as red state license plates advocate. Humane ideals are never in the forefront of U.S. government thought, and the great masses of people are always ready to identify their relationship with that government in the first person. If "we" want to help "them" we have to send an army and bomb their homes. Killing is helping, ending the killing is a bad thing. There is little difference between calls to martyrdom and calls to finish the war on terror. But Americans think they are good, even when they commit the most awful sin of murder. That is why they make such good terrorists. Terrorists always think their motives are pure, and consequently justify violence time after time. "Americans want the right to kill whenever the mood strikes them."We cannot lay all of the blame at the White House doorstep. Bush didn't have to work too hard to convince most Americans to support war. Most were primed to do so years before when his father kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait but didn't invade the rest of the country. He didn't finish the job. He didn't take out Saddam. His discretion made him an object of ridicule and derision to average citizens who were mystified and angry when the violence stopped before their blood lust had run its course. They pulled out before they were finished and were left with frustration. The Weapons of Mass Destruction story was not just an excuse for Bush, and for a Congress made up of the violent, the cynical, and the chicken hearted. The story was an excuse for Americans who want the right to kill whenever the mood strikes them. What will the next excuse be? Where will Americans be told to direct their killer instincts? The choices are endless for our tyrannical rulers. "If any country needs saving, ours certainly does."How would Americans feel if another nation decided to "save" them they way they saved Iraqis, and Vietnamese, and Nicaraguans, and Filipinos? Just imagine a foreign leader on the floor of the United Nations, making the argument that Americans must be saved from life under evil leadership. We have endured rigged elections, a treasury robbed by corrupt crony capitalism, a loss of civil liberties, and dictatorial one party rule. If any country needs saving, ours certainly does. The next target of American generosity and dogoodism is in very big trouble. This governments terrorists and their citizen followers are a strange and dangerous lot indeed. They either don't care if they are committing acts of evil, or they convince themselves they are good. And they promise not to pull out until they are finished. Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. When sending email, please remember to replace the (at) with @. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at freedomrider.blogspot.com.
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