Beyond Outrage

...is simply grief.

Certainly, the assault on Falluja has given the Iraqi people a lot to look at, and a lot to think about. Some 200,000 people -- the great majority of Falluja's population of some 300,000 -- were driven out of their city by news of the imminent attack and the US bombardment. No agency of government, US or Iraqi, which turned off the city's water and electricity in preparation for the assault, offered assistance. Nor did the United Nations Refugee Agency or any other representative of the international community appear. And where are the people now? And what stories are the expelled 200,000 telling the millions of Iraqis among whom they are now mixing? We don't know. No one seems to be interested.

When the attack came, the first target was Falluja General Hospital. The New York Times explained why: "The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of civilian casualties." If there were no hospital, there would be no visible casualties; if there were no visible casualties, there would be no international outrage, and all would be well. What of those civilians who remained? No men of military age were permitted to leave during the attack. Remaining civilians were trapped in their apartments with no electricity or water. No one knows how many of them have been killed, and no official group has any plans to find out. The city itself is a ruin. "A drive through the city revealed a picture of utter destruction," the Independent of Britain reports, "with concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and rubble and human remains littering the empty streets."

And America is supposed to be the good guy. Right.

On one side, slaughtering Western women who spend their entire lives helping Iraqis, because that, you know, makes a point. On the other, closing hospitals because they might, you know, help people, then word gets out about all the people who needed help and then you've got (gasp) a PR problem.

Hey, who can tell all those white/brown/(insert skin color here) people apart, anyway?

The point of the article quoted above -- titled "What Happened to Hearts?" -- is that we're just trying to convince them to stop fighting with fear. When someone does that to Americans, we call it terrorism. On the other side, you've got guys like bin Laden using and excusing terrorism because, well heck, everybody does it. It almost makes me nostalgic for the days when a terrorist could make a splash by having a dozen or so athletes killed. Almost. Arafat died just in time; he was too soft for the new world chaos.

Forget leaving the country -- I want a new planet. A higher plane of existence would be even better, but I'll settle for a place to settle away from all these fanatics. Still, pretty much all thoughts of leaving have fled my mind -- if people like me don't stand and fight this madness, who will?

(On the other hand, I've got a growing boy on my hands. If there's a draft, and it lasts several years...)

(/) Roland X
This is not my America