We earn our livelihood by language -- words -- each of us in a
different way. One, to point out the failings and foibles of the
human condition in a way that makes the listener laugh -- sometimes
nervously so -- since the words paint a picture that is a
reflection of themselves. The more outlandish the picture, the
louder the laughter -- which itself becomes an instrument by which
they distance themselves from the devastating pictures the words
create. They are able, or perhaps forced, to laugh because it is
always someone else that is being described. The other of us uses
words to convince, to argue a cause, to sway, to use the words as a
means to set the listener on an inescapable path to an already
predetermined conclusion: the relation between the puppet and
puppeteer.
In modern times, from the McCarthy hearings to the trial of O.J.
Simpson, we've been reminded of the wounding power of words.
Because of this, the two of us are very careful with the words we
use, particularly words like "traitor" and "hypocrite."
There is this silly equation that is being peddled both here and
abroad about our country's mission in Iraq. No nuclear bombs
discovered equals no threat to the United States, equals no excuse
to have deposed the dictator of Iraq, equals tricking the American
people by the President, equals more and more nonsense along this
semantic foolishness. But would all of this were only semantic
foolishness. We believe it to be much worse than merely that,
something more sinister, something more despicable, made worse
because it is spouted by those who seek to lead us.
The President, after September 11th, went before Congress and
stated a simple self-evident fact: Friend to my friend, is my
friend; friend to my enemy is my enemy. Sixty-two years ago,
Churchill, who had spent his adult lifetime warning his country
about the virulence of communism, supported Russia when, in June of
1941, it was attacked by Germany. He explained his change of heart,
"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable
reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."
Terrorism is an old sickness, born in part from ancient ways
threatened by the inexorable march of progress. The seeming triumph
of modernity over superstition; violent fundamentalist beliefs that
suppress human dignity and the right to self-expression; the
freedom to practice a way of life not in conformity with those
beliefs; the violent subjugation of non-believers and women,
torture and rape. A system of beliefs that labels those of other
faiths or beliefs "infidels" is incompatible with any sensible
acceptance of people whose beliefs are different from one's own. It
is not casual that the fundamentalist Iraqis referred to the
Coalition forces as "The Crusaders." For them the chords of time
connect the Christians of the early Crusades with the Coalition
troops.
Terrorists have been with us in many guises in the last century.
Joseph Conrad wrote about the terrorist who walked the fog-bound
street of London practicing the arming of a bomb in his pocket, "I
walk always with my right hand closed round the india-rubber [sic]
ball which I have in my trouser pocket. The pressing of this ball
actuates a detonator inside the flask I carry in my pocket."
Those of us members of what Tom Brokaw called "The "Greatest
Generation" who remember Saturday at the movies perhaps remember
what in those days passed for an epic film, the movie Gunga
Din. Sam Jaffe improbably dressed in native tatters,
chillingly exhorting a throng of mesmerized followers to "Kill for
the love of Killing." That Saturday afternoon big-screen fantasy is
not far removed from our reality.
In 1945, Eisenhower had the good sense to order that all the
Germans living in the vicinity of the concentration death camps be
forced to file by the mounds of corpses their country's insanity
had created to forever indelibilize it on their souls.
Under other circumstances, but for quite the same reason -- the
purpose of indelibilizing the outrage upon their sensibilities --
the politicians who are taking cheap shots at the President and our
efforts should have been made to file by the World Trade Center
when it was a smoldering crematorium.
David Kay, the former U.N. arms inspector dispatched by our
country to look for WMD, gave an interim report that revealed signs
of a biological weapons program, a container of a deadly toxin,
evidence of a long-range missile program, industries and factories
that were designed to serve dual uses, both for peace and war. This
is not to mention a dictator who has sought to build an atomic
bomb, and actually used poison gas against his own people. All of
this is not enough for the politicians. A handful of lunatics armed
with nothing more sophisticated than box cutters killed three
thousand people in America, wreaked havoc on our economy, and
forever changed virtually every way we live our lives from
traveling to mailing a package. Iraq, armed with the impedimenta of
modern war, had no need for box cutters.
The politicians, particularly the bunch seeking the Democratic
presidential nomination, are not ignorant people. They understand
that in the world as is exists to day, evil in one place is evil
everywhere. That when there is celebration over the murders of 9/11
anywhere in the world, there is but a short time span from the
celebration to the act -- measured by the time it takes to acquire
the means to carry out the act.
Armed with such knowledge and arguing in favor of complacency or
palaver is at best hypocritical, at worst treason.
History, if not a teacher, is nothing. Without learning and
acting upon historical precedent, we are but collections of atoms,
locked in a block of present time, hurling though the continuum of
time and space.
These packs of political jackals, away from the microphones and
cameras, would not themselves want to have a President who sat back
and negotiated and negotiated until the next batch of mad men
launched, in the name of some imagined wrong or religious
perversion, another assault on America. There are names for them
and those politicians, and we have suggested a couple.
topics:
Trade, Movies, Iraq, Russia, NATO, Communism
