911 Chain of Concern

Today on Rt 2 in Bangor...


Chained formed by over 100 people


Big message is that Bush's wars are a failure of Real Security


The flags each represent one dead US soldier in Iraq -- the line goes almost as far as the eye can see in both this and the other direction. We could add perhaps 50 more for each one of these in order to represent civilians now dead in the countries the US has invaded. The flags normally reside in front of an Orono residence. Last year I posted pictures -- unfortunately the death count has increased.

Is there any doubt that the wars President Bush has started over the last four years in response to 911 are an absolute failure of Real Security for both the citizens of the United States and those of the entire world? Bush is utterly incapable of accepting or even remotely understanding the non-war options post-911 that we in the peace movement have offered at every turn. And this is tragic, as the failure of security during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina illustrates.

Bush offers no solutions except bombing, attacking, invading, conquering, occupying, looting, and controlling with a meddling hand the faux democracies he promotes for propaganda purposes -- along with the prodigious death that accompanies all of these things -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, and elsewhere.

When real dangers from natural disasters to energy crises come to haunt us, Bush provides nothing -- except perhaps cronyism, contracting theft, and tax give-aways. And terrorism is hardly curtailed. What is next, I do not know, but it seems anti-US anger is at an all-time high worldwide. This is so unnecessary.

Yet, many Americans are still steeped in the false right of the American president to define the terms of international relations so that America can kill at the time and place of its choosing, for time immemorial, chalking it all up to permanent absolution granted us after the 911 attacks.

I was struck today when Bob Schieffer of CBS News (hardly the worst of the TV pundits) on his Face the Nation program said in his weekly commentary:

SCHIEFFER: In the midst of the disaster along the coast, let us pause now to remember what happened four years ago today when we were blindsided by a heartless enemy. We were attacked that day by terrorists willing to take the lives of innocent people to advance their cause, but that day we also saw what sets us apart from such an enemy. We saw Americans who were willing to risk and, in many cases, give their lives to save the innocent.

But have we not with our military might done heartlessly exactly what Bob Schieffer decries of the 911 terrorists? Isn't it the right to kill innocents -- collaterally or whatever -- precisely the right claimed by America and its war machine? And while President Bush cannot explain the ``cause'' advanced by prosecuting these wars, even to grieving Gold Star mothers, it sure seems like control of energy reserves and domination of the political crossroads of the world in the Middle East are in fact the bases of this cause.

We will never honor the dead of 911 and the service men and women called to sacrifice and unfortunately betrayal in Bush's wars -- or the tens of thousands of innocent civilians worldwide America has bombed out, killed, detained, and tortured in the last four years in the name of 911 -- until we take a good hard look in the mirror, declare that all this must stop, and that our guard & military must come home to protect us from the real threats we face.

The sooner the political environment changes enough to contain and stop the Bush Administration, the better. It is sad when the administration's strongest critics in recent weeks turn out to be Chuck Hagel and Susan Collins. Come on Democrats! Wake up and get tough with this monster!!