Letters to the Editor

• Tales of Power

  [Read the article: Memorial Day]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Carlos Casteneda reported that don Juan once told him that only if one has lived the life of a warrior fully, can one claim knowlege of the world as a warrior knows it.

  This war, like most wars, has been waged upon a platform built of nothing but tales of power, fighter pilot fantasies and John Wayne movies. Our one "good" war, the one that actually saved the world (in part by nearly ending it), was a spontaneous and superhuman act of self defense, defense of neighbors and friends, and defense against an avowed enemy closing pincers on us from east and west, a known quantity far larger than us, far more powerful at the outset, and far more organized. We prevailed against the massed power of the planet's whole demonic forces because we had to, because it was right, and because that was a war. It has sometimes been referred to as an "honorable" war. I'm not sure that isn't oxymoronic, but sometimes words simply fail.

  What we are currently engaged in is neither a war nor an honorable pursuit. It is an entrapment which followed an occupation which followed an utterly unjustified invasion of a sovereign country during a time when our military ought to have been deployed in the pursuit of a master criminal who, to this day, roams free to make sport of the calamity he helped visit upon some 3000 innocents more than five years ago. The rationale we are handed with rubber gloves is the fecal matter which spells out "If we leave over there they will follow us here." Yes. The Al Qaida Navy, I suppose, or their Air Force perhaps. Hell, "they" are already here, and they don't need to do anything, because for the moment they have won. They are driving this disintegration of the collective American soul, and our "leaders" are complicit, acting as brothers of the same lodge with Osama Bin Laden. Nothing less.

  The President smugly replies to the question of why that criminal is still at large by saying with his trademark smirk and "a leer or pure, educated evil", "Because we haven't caught him."

  "How long?" shouts the voice of Richard Prior inside my head this day - "How long? HOWLONGMUSTTHISBULLSHITGOON?? How long?"

  And my brain echoes the question and it seats itself in my soul and I ask my fellow Americans who continue to sit by and allow our Ruling Class to perform these bald and florid blood sacrifices to industry, ego and facism, HOW LONG? How long will we as a people tolerate the sacrifice of our soldiers who, having signed up to defend our freedom, continue to die in the name of God and Nation because it is their sworn duty to obey their Commander in Chief? What would we do to them if they were to mutiny? How can they possibly win in this situation?

  Westminster Abbey is filled with the tombs and markers of men who "gave [their] life for God, Country and the King."

  Is that all there is?

  Today the bill has been delivered. Who will pay? Who will answer? Clearly not the current administration. Perhaps it will be the rest of us, at graveside, each year, performing the same sad, pointless ritual.

  There is little to celebrate today. Today is a funereal day for many families across our nation and the middle east.

  Memorialize that.

  Thank you Gary K., and forgive the words but accept the sentiment when I say God bless you. You have given us something priceless on a day when the price was already far too high.

  Permalink Monday, May 28, 2007 12:30 PM