Mutating Into What We Hate

This article makes it sound like there's been some huge revelation; that NOW we know that Americans are terrorizing Iraqis. But in truth, we've known this all along. Was there REALLY any doubt that the heroic pretense for invasion was just a cover-up for an oil grab? I seem to recall millions of civilians in all corners of the globes taking to the streets with signs reading "No Blood For Oil" on a weekly basis immediately before and after the invasion.

When I marched in protest of this war on several occasions, I did it because war is violent and terrible. The soldiers get mutilated in warfare. They get shot and blown apart and ripped to pieces by shrapnel. They are subject to chemical burns, heat burns, and dangerous radiation. They suffocate, get pinned down by falling buildings, and slowly bleed to death. Those are the soldiers.

The innocent civilians living in a war-engulfed country gather huddled in the basements of their buildings hoping that a bomb won't land on THEIR building because that would still kill them. They make daily trips to do their errands and watch others - their friends, their peers - killed in the streets. They carry water buckets, for there the enemy always aims for the infrastructure. They stand in crowds gathered around supply trucks hoping for a piece of bread or a handful of rice. Most go home without. Where once these people attended school, held normal jobs, had gas/electric stoves, electric lighting, running water, etc; now they have buckets of water and they're lucky to find the scraps of flammable material to cook with.

The reason I took to streets along with millions of others on all those occasions was to protest the worst form of barbarism - war - in the name of the worst of human traits - greed. THIS war has been fought a thousand times before and always there has been a very few already wealthy winners gaining more wealth and thousands if not millions of losers who give their lives for a fight they don't care about. These are the realities of war - all wars.

So all those who supported the war on Iraq should be ashamed. They have no right to claim ignorance; each war in history is evidence enough that we should never resort to war again, least of all for such petty gains. The only true explanation is that they didn't care.

I'm tired of people claiming shock and awe when they find out that war turns horrible. If I shoot a gun and accidentally kill someone, it's still a crime. Yet in war you can engage an enemy and cause thousands of pointless deaths and get away free. This petroleum-fuelled genocide in Iraq is a crime. Pure and simple. And Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, & Co. should be punished for their countless crimes just as the American soldiers should be punished for their own crimes. The top brass are the ones who facilitated these tortures in the first place.

-KY

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Kory Yamashita

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Here Here Kory, straight talk is always refreshing!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Kory,

You know how to move me. I hope you're not just a marcher, because you have the passion to be an effective speaker and writer on this subject.