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DICHOTOMY CENTRAL
Any
kind of violent response to terror apparently is kosher. It matters not
whether it is political or religious or personal. We're told
that children have a pure response to the events of 9/11. They feel the
need to take revenge.
We ask, was that need expressed before or after the vengeance meter at the White House went off the scale? "Wanted, dead or alive." "Smoke them out of their caves." "Bring down the evil evil-doers of evil." "Danger, danger, Will Robinson" -- oops, that's from another sci fic.
Because all politics is both personal and religious with the present administration, we admit our confusion. We must ask questions. Whatever happened to the word of their God that they keep telling us we must obey? We sense there is a fearful dichotomy between their admonition that abortion is "killing babies" and killing Afghani babies is protecting America.
Ask anyone who supports this military action in Afghanistan and they will tell you that the government is protecting us from those people who want to kill all Americans. They will point to Osama bin Laden's very words on the subject and insist that he is out to get all of us and that justifies anything our government does.
Ask anyone who supports a woman's right to chose abortion and they will tell you that these women are trying to save their lives. These women may be victims of rape or simply faced with a pregnancy they cannot deal with or a pregnancy that can affect their health and/or their life.
We hear from the far distance of our youthful training the words: "Be not overcome by evil but overcome evil with good." How could the very religious and godly Dubya and all the others in Congress who support this military action fail to hear it also? Why does "evil evil-doers of evil" drown out this biblical admonition?
Why, we ask, is collateral damage OK for the military and women's health and welfare is not?
These same people very often remind us that abortion is killing babies and even stem cell research should be abolished for the same reason it kills babies. But this does not seem to apply to babies in other countries that we bomb.
How is it that the bible thumpers along with their titular head, George W. Bush, can call themselves Christians when referring to women's reproductive rights while acting like infidels toward the suffering people of Afghanistan?
Now take justice, for example, since it seems to be something that is bandied about quite a bit now. Dubya demands justice because of the attack on the United States on 7/11, but Dubya and the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT appear riddled with dichotomy.
The head of DOJ, Ashcroft, is bragging about the capture of a man who sent fake "anthrax letters" to women's clinics. Yet he and his department did nothing to apprehend him or any of the others who threatened women and their doctors with anthrax until after September 11, 2001 when the first anthrax letters were received on Capitol Hill.
Dubya and Rummy are the ones who will bring charges to the military tribunal. Charges against anyone they suspect is a terrorist or connected to a terrorist. They are also the ones picking the members of the tribunal and can overturn the findings of the tribunal. "It's a matter of trust," says Dubya. How much trust should we have in a man who enjoyed putting people to death when he was governor of Texas?
DOJ's, Mr. Ashcroft on TV at the Senate hearing this week again proclaimed his devotion to justice. Then he clearly announced that any [that includes us and even some Conservatives] who found fault with the president's orders was traitorous and un-American -- pretty much in the same category that he put terrorists. http://www.truthout.com/12.07C.Safire.Voices.htm
Not so long ago, Russian forces were engage in a war to conquer Afghanistan and we were supplying the Afghans with arms and advice. Following their defeat, the Russians pulled their army out but later established an alliance with the Northern Alliance.
When Rummy ordered the NA to stay out of Kabul, Russian PM, Putin, ordered them to go in. The NA now controls most of Afghanistan. There are multiple dichotomies here. Dubya fell for the bear-hug and never saw the sucker-punch coming so this time his boys with Rummy at point, are continuing to make Afghanistan safe for the very Russians, that only a few years ago, they had tried to drive out. IT'S ALL FAIR IN LOVE AND OIL.
