Posted by pancho (148.244.221.109) on November 07, 2001 at 11:33:41:
Let’s see how softly this can go down. This is just an idea floated out there. It comes from puzzling over our behavior for several years now. It comes as a result of several meetings and conversations and observing us at national and state conventions, at parties and on television. It comes from being asked a lot of questions and asking them as well.
But let me lead off by stating that if I were gay, or Christian or an Alcoholic or Muslim, or a convicted felon or Jewish or out on parole, or headed off to prison, I’d own up to it…that I’m not hiding anything or behind anything. If I was out to ruin Christianity, as if such a thing were possible, I’d say it up front…why wouldn’t I. You can’t get far in your work if you hide what it is you’re up to…and if I were against Christianity or Islam or anything else, I’d say so from the start so I could work at it more freely. I’m not interested in your small minds…I’m looking for some fresh air.
What I admit from the start is that I am concerned for, and am trying to figure out what to do for, an Assyrian Heritage. I confess that I don’t see much of one, that what I am being told is an Assyrian heritage looks more to me like a Christian village thing…all the more so when I hear most of us extol the day we turned Christian, beginning your own count of the things that matter to you from the birth of Jesus and not Ashur, claiming your holy cities are Bethlehem and Nazareth and not Nineveh or Ashur… see that those cities are in Israel and not BetNahrain…and finally…am shocked to see us backing the destruction of BetNahrain while we help protect Israel.
An Assyrian would be confused.
Should an ancient Hebrew travel down to us through Time, he would be pleased and proud that his descendents ultimately made good on what seemed like a wild hope all those centuries…that “Next Year in Jerusalem” actually and finally came true…that aside from the fact that there was no sacrificing of animals or firstborn children, the Jewish religion was being practiced pretty much as it had been handed down by Abraham and Moses, Amos, Elijah, Isaiah and Hosea…and that even Joshua seemed well represented in the bloodshed of the innocents and the ousting of Palestinians where once Caananites had been dispossessed. He would also be gratified to see the Assyrians where they are…especially thrilled that they rationalized the destruction of their own homelands as easily as they did the protection of his own.
An ancient Assyrian making the same trip would be in for a shock.
If you meet a man beating his dog…or his child, you can’t very well hope to be forgiven or even understood, if you join in…going the man one better by running home to get your gun, a long knife, some poison and broken bottles…explaining how, as the man shows so little regard for that dog or child…you’re going to join in and help beat either of those two defenseless animals. It just doesn’t make sense…it puts you on a lower plane than the man doing the beating, for you’d have to assume he had some reason, some interest, and if not…if he was totally off base, was completely wrong and unjustified…had no cause to be doing such a horrid thing… how the hell do you explain your interest and willingness to join him in such an act and bring even more violence to bear then he can muster.
If indeed Saddam is responsible for the misery of his people…of the children of Iraq…what is the United States doing helping him make things even worse. Is it Saddam who sits on and heads the commission that decides whether truck tires are okay for him to buy because they might go on a military vehicle instead of an ambulance…is it Saddam who decides what is a valid medicine and what is not. Is it Saddam who decides how much money for food they can have, or what price the oil sells for, or how much they can sell…and just how did it happen that the United States decides these things for a sovereign nation anyway. And let’s say that man beating his dog holds a gun to its head and says either you get out or I shoot this dog…should we stay at all costs, even to whipping out a gun ourselves and shooting the dog, or child, first…to prove what…that no one tells us anything or stops us when we want something? Is that what all this is about…the United States being able to get whatever it wants, whenever it wants it and in any way it wants it? And do you go along, even at the cost of your own patrimony just because for a brief spell, you get some of the crumbs that fall from the table…that table groaning under the weight of all that’s been stolen and filched from the poor nations on earth…including the birthplace of your Heritage and, for many of you, your own as well?
You can’t just say that Saddam, or anyone else, has to please America before he can expect to live, or eat, or run a country. How many far more brutal tyrants have consigned their populations to hell with America’s blessings and Aid? You can do it so long as you’re willing to beat that dog too…but there’s going to be a price to be paid…and you WILL pay it…and just as soon as it gets too painful to pay it, you’re gonna withdraw and leave your dead buried, your wounded, wounded. America has done that, and will do it always, in the age of total war and complete annihilation. Going “the distance” now means extracting as much profit and oil as you can before the price gets too high. It doesn’t mean crushing any enemy completely…that’s why Saddam remained in power…you need Saddams to justify these sorts of things..and when things are too quiet you mount an airstrike…as Bush did the day after entering the White House…and before the Florida count could be really undertaken..
Next time you see a man abusing his dog…don’t help him do it…save the dog, you’ll like yourself a whole lot better.