‘Cause We Don’t Wanna Fight No More…

Okay, kids – it’s time to roll up your sleeves and show the temporary flag tattoos you have, of course, been judicious enough to apply…(preferably American, no matter what nation you may have had the happenstance to be born in).

Let us start with the insultingly obvious statements. Needless to say, the destruction of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 was a decidedly unpleasant, uncalled for and horrifying event. I have made it clear in the past I consider individual acts of terrorism – even organized group terrorism - pointless and useless, because, for the most part, they do not target those who are arguably the cause of one’s complaint, and they alienate potential allies (remember that the State being attacked gets to define terrorism, and it tends to consider any action of defense or even debatably understandable offense as falling within that category, while never labeling its own efforts within the ‘terror’ sphere thusly, and it brings its weapons of propaganda to bear rather rapidly against the forces that threaten ITS vision of reality). If you want to target the powers that be, you are going to have to mobilize the majority (and that would be in Canada, Afghanistan AND the United States), because then you wouldn’t HAVE to destroy buildings – you could smash the State. This may sound naïve, but, then, I have always taken the spirit of positivism to its bitchiest, most subversive levels, and a system that teaches me the importance of teamwork and unity has no particular right to complain if I filter those concepts through my OWN ideological biases. And I suppose I could even be nice and leave alone the fact that it was the United States who substantially funded the Taliban when it suited its interests to do so (in terms of anti-Soviet utilitarianism) – just as it sold weapons to Iraq and helped in the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. After all, everyone makes mistakes, as the American election of 2000 abundantly demonstrates on oh-so-many levels.

It is much more difficult to ignore a creeping tone of ‘us and them’ and basically military McCarthyism that have risen from the grave with a vigour that denies their last vibrancy in the Nixon era and even their stumbling zombie phase under Reagan. Bush himself delivered a speech in which he directly stated that anyone who was not with him was with Osama Bin Laden (of course, there were multi-syllabic words in it, so he likely had no hand in its production, but the head of the State is generally held responsible for the colour of his crap…).

With all due apologies, Mr. Bush, that is redolent of the bullshit that was doubtless everywhere to be found near your home in Texas, and even within it, thanks to your Daddy’s own incoherent vomiting vocalisms.

The day of the attack, I had co-workers already dreaming of going home to tape the bombing of Afghanistan (this before there was any real reason to suspect that the Taliban were behind it, other than, of course, their earlier actions in 1993 – which, frankly, in any court of law, and, one would hope, at the Hague in the Netherlands, is not conclusive…some courts throw OUT any attempt to introduce past actions or charges as highly prejudicial…). And I am a Canadian, so I can only just imagine what things were like in the United States proper. Though I work in a company that deals exclusively with Americans, I did not actually hear any average people having the furious, irrational ‘you squished my playhouse and now I’m going to stomp on you and everyone you know’ reactions the State down south had. Perhaps that was luck of the draw…but I simply wonder…needless to say, there were any number of news soundbites to that effect, and countless hateful and barely literate letters to the editor, but I question how many pleas for rationality, proof and proportion were squelched in that official-state-organ enthusiasm. Actually, though, I do not need to ask for very long, as all editorials to the paper that suggested there were reasons for numerous countries to dislike U.S. policies were met with what boiled down to ‘Osama did a bigger wrong’ or ‘How could you be so mean at a time like this?’ responses. The former is probably true, in terms of perceived impact; the latter suggests we should turn off our brains because someone got kicked hard (instead, there should be a BROADER analysis, examining the kicker AND the kickee, because a lot of terrorism and vandalism is a response to a sense of powerlessness and desperation – not in any way to justify what happened, but simply an attempt to comprehend…I do not do well in an incomprehensible world, and I refuse to gleefully grab onto some chaos theory or post-modern nonsense…such approaches do far MORE violence to a worldview than any bomb ever could…).

This is, needless to say, your cue to accuse me of a lack of patriotism. Honey, colour that one with a big ‘Duh’. I rarely pause for nation identification…if I’ve never believed that accidents of genetic/familial relationships excuse horrid behaviour or cruelty, do you honestly believe I would think the same on a larger scale defined by the shapes on a map?

I cannot claim, of course, to have any simple answers (well, I DO, but I’m hardly going to expose my neck to the vapid vampires of violence), but the bloodthirstiness of Bush(and, particularly, Rumsfeld, Bush’s Minister of Offence, who seems terribly eager to send young men off to war – you’d think the old queen would know better…),Chretien and Blair troubles me greatly. Why is it people safe in their bunkers are so willing to reach into their trousers and wank their missiles, knowing the explosive ejaculate will be safely soaked up by cannon fodder and people already sufficiently raped by male privilege in Afghanistan?

I do know that people with such power are NOT to be given a free rein to do as they wish, in ANY country of the world. I ALSO am determined to see, whether it be by election or direct action, that those individuals do NOT starve another country to death to make sure they have a steady supply of oil or economic superiority. In the words of Prince, who had some astute things to say about ANOTHER war launched against an uppity ally of the United States on his Diamonds and Pearls album (though this comes from "Partyup" on Dirty Mind from 1980, ironically the last time I can remember thinking it might be better to check out before World War III started):

‘We’re sick and tired of your damn war – and we don’t wanna fight no more.’

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