"your mother hoping to hang that Gold Star"

[pynchonoid]

Community Commentary
Saturday, March 8, 2002	
Supporters of war will become accomplices to murder
By Colin Shea

Prague, Czech Republic

Nearly everyone reading this is about to become an
accomplice to murder.

You are on the verge of launching a massive assault on
Iraq, which will result in the deaths of thousands of
innocent civilians and soldiers duty-bound to defend
their land. Your massive aerial slaughter will be the
denouement to a decade of silent genocide that, in the
name of peace and security, has claimed the lives of
hundreds of thousands of children. 

Your invasion will be swift and brutal. You will rid
the world of an ugly tyrant and probably put another
in his place. It may lead to unimaginable consequences
— revolution, terrorism, and war — across the Middle
East and beyond. It will be a staggering blow to the
rule of law and justice in international affairs.

Your invasion will be illegal and illogical, based on
flimsy evidence and supported by childish, Orwellian
propaganda. It is happening because untold billions
will accrue to those who control the media you watch
and the companies which suck your retirement funds
dry: it is permitted because those who bear the costs
are invisible people in a far-off land of which you
know nothing. Iraq will be invaded not because it is a
threat but because it is so weak it cannot even defend
itself. People will not be liberated, but oil surely
will.

All this will be done in your name, as you buy canned
food and huddle in basements because of a
conveniently-timed "terror alert." Done in your name
as an anti-war movement, it is studiously ignored by
politicians and the media. 

You have been duped by a gang of seedy, evil men who
could not enumerate Wilson’s Fourteen Points without
laughing, who plot war while kneeling in church, who
can stage a photo op of a chickenhawk general in front
of a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt without blushing. Men
to whom the stench of corpses and the attendant profit
is so much perfume. Men who can’t even be bothered to
make their lies remotely credible when they stand in
mockery before the world. You will send your sons and
daughters to kill and be killed, while they wire
profits to their offshore hedge funds. You will
believe that it is all right and good and the American
Way, and that is a repellent thought. 

Václav Havel’s last act upon leaving the presidency of
the Czech Republic was to sign a letter stating his
support for the coming slaughter. I thought that of
all nations, the Czechs would know what it means to
stand helplessly at the sidelines as one’s country is
offered as a sacrificial lamb to the ambitions of a
stronger power. I thought that of all Europe’s
leaders, Václav Havel would be the one to look at
George Bush and recoil from the greedy violence,
abysmal ignorance and the blind lust for power that
now threatens the peace of the world. I thought that
my adopted home would raise its voice, small and
insignificant as it might be, against the thundering
drums of war. 

I was wrong to think these things, and that
disappoints me bitterly. But that bitterness is
nothing compared to what I feel when I watch Bush and
Rumsfeld defecate proudly on the memory of that old
home I still hold so dear. 

The Bush administration feels no need to display
objectivity or nuanced argumentation, so neither shall
I. They have whored your honor and the memories of our
greatest leader’s half-realized dreams, from Jefferson
to Wilson to Martin Luther King. They have whored the
memories of those who lie in silent tombs, from
Normandy to New York, for a paltry 30 pieces of
silver. In your hearts you know what they are doing,
but you still let them get away with it. This is a
shame that will not diminish over time, but grow and
grow as the stench of needless death thickens
inexorably. 

Colin Shea is a native of Dover.	

<http://www4.fosters.com/News2003/March2003/Mar_08/Comment/cc_0308b.asp>

"the chaplain, the doctor, your mother hoping to hang
that Gold Star, the vapid soprano last night on the
Home Service programme, let's not forget Mr. Noel
Coward so stylish and cute about death and the
afterlife, packin them into the Duchess for the fourth
year running, the lads in Hollywood telling us how
grand it all is over here how much fun. Walt Disney
causing Dumbo the elephant to clutch to that feather
like how many carcasses under the snow tonight among
the waite-painted tanks, how many hands each frozen
around a Miraculous Medal, lucky pieceof worn bone,
half-dollar with the grinning sun peering up under
Liberty's wispy gown, clutching, dumb, when the 88
fell--what do you think, it's a children's story? 
There aren't any. The children are away dreaming, but
the Empire has no place for dreams and it's Adults
Only in here tonight"
Gravity's Rainbow, pp. 134-135


<http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm/action/index.cfm?action=action.speak_out>
An Alternative to War for Defeating Saddam Hussein
A Religious Initiative

-Doug



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