The morning came upon me without the sun's rising. The heaviness of my heart was leftover from whatever I had been dreaming and is still, as I sit here, an unwelcome companion. Perhaps, it is neccessary for me to keep company with this for awhile as I grapple to understand, why we are fighting this war, what we can do to bring freedom to people who don't seem to want it, and how we shall preserve our country, or even if it is possible.
I found a few answers to this in Osama's August 2002 letter to us which went unacknowleged by American leaders and also in the many speeches our President made in the following months. I first blogged Osama bin Laden's letter and hope you will read it and just think about it as objectively as you can at first. Go back and let it piss you off. Then I urge you to do the same with our Presidential speeches which I blogged next. The blogs begin at the bottom not at the top so when they pop up they do appear out of order in when they were posted.
I woke today, a child--a child with many childlike questions. What do we do about the oppressed voice of this world? Can anything be done to liberate their voice? Will anyone listen to their voice? Is anyone hearing now? I think about America as they fought to free themselves from British rule--the America of our forefathers. I think about America today as the new world liberator and the new world oppresser and I wonder what we are fighting for really. Are we fighting to bring liberation? Yes. Are we fighting to save the world from tyrants? Yes. Are we fighting so we can have O I L to fuel our own levels of consumption? Yes. Are we figthing against people who have different viewpoints of ours only to bring us to a level of tolerance for each other? Yes. Are we fighting against terrorism? Yes. Are they fighting us back to be free from our occupation? Yes. Are there other reasons we are all fighting each other? Yes. Are we all right? Yes and No. Will there ever be winners in this war? I don't see a winner here, folks. Keep in mind, I'm thinking as a child-my inner child, the one that grapples for a simple understanding.
Osama bin Laden is terribly angry with Americans for siding with Jewish occupation in Islamic Palenstine. He is angry with us for funding Israel, and occupying Islamic regions with our military. He is angry at our children for fighting our wars which he says are based on lies. He calls us a world threat, a force of terror against the poor and oppressed. He fights anyone who sides with us because to take up with us is to be unfaithful to Allah as he interprets it. We say, he isn't the voice of Islam and that he will soon meet his death. He says he is teaching the people to fight for their freedoms from the rich and powerful. He has shunned his own family, heavy investors in the Carlylse Group which he maintains is a product of Satan. But what troubles this child in me is that he sanctions hits on innocent people. His is a call for revenge. His lists and citings against us are vast. His assertions are correct in most cases but his methods are another kind of evil designed to divide rather than unite the poorer people he says must unite to preserve life.
We say we are the hand that freedom comes from. We say we have a right to the oil of other countries. We say we have the right to shop wherever we wish and to sell whatever is marketable wherever we will. We say not all Islamic people are bad, unless you are Ann Coulter, the elite clientele I serve who wish to protect their holdings, and Pat Robertson. We say the terrorists must stop but we don't acknowlege their message. Franklin Roosevelt, as Art reminded me, felt we had become a weak link in the eyes of the world as we had become more isolationist (supplying our own needs without relying on other countries). He used this to incite Russia into influencing Japan to attack us. This is fact. Franklin led us with a Get them before they get us policy. We dropped the Atom bomb and up till now, we are the only country to ever use a weapon of mass destruction of this magnitude.
Now the tables have turned. We see other world powers with nuclear energy, worry about the uranium clusters still strewn across Russia in open and unprotected zones, and the fact that we have become so present (occupiers in the name of oil) all over the world makes us more vunerable to attacks from terrorists. Bush says we will not negotiate, we don't have to listen to the world; "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."
As a child, I'm stirred and I ask, "Lord, what ever shall we do now? How are we to respond?" Osama claims that Islamics are the only true believers of God, that the Jews refuse the original truths and that the Christians just cater to the Jews. That is how he sees it. I see the Islamic faith a binding faith built on slavery not real freedom. I see them holding on to the idea that freedom comes at their death and is only for a select group. I see Jewish faith as one that honors the laws and lives in the now. I see them as a group protecting their home. I see them as a group trying to find their way back home, though they would disagree with me whole-heartedly. I see Christians as being very blessed because we are neither Jewish nor Islamic and have had the arm of grace and mercy extended to us in spite of the fact that we are neither. So, as I try to understand the Islamic/Jewish struggles, I come from an entirely different understanding. I love God. I can't understand why some say to "kill them all." Those thoughts exist in the Islamic preachings, the Jewish political responses, and the Christian paranoia that is prevelant and coming to a head in our days. So what is the answer? How do we avoid war with each other? How do we come to a point of understanding that not one of us will change the other's mind. Could this be why Bush says we will not negotiate; because he knows that no one involved will change? I don't give Bush that much credit because his thirsts lean more towards affluency than to noble causes. Still, in word, it looks correct to me and no one has the answer. This appears to be something only God can ultimately change. We as humans have utterly failed. That's all for now.
Please look down to Osama's and Bush's words. Thank you for taking the time to cruise through the mud with me.
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