What Shall be Our Legacy?
by Doreen Miller
Dissident Voice
January 2, 2003
It seems like
only yesterday when the world was caught up in mass hysteria and dire
predictions of doom and gloom about the impending Y2K crisis that would plunge
the world into utter chaos and darkness. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief
when, at the stroke of midnight on January 1, 2000, planes did not plunge from
the skies, computer systems continued to function, and the lights remained on.
In short, life went on as usual. Little did people realize, however, that the
year 2000 was to herald in a unprecedented age of terror and darkness.
The road to hell
began barely nine months into George Bush's presidency, when the American
public suffered a major terrorist attack made possible allegedly by a simple
failure of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies to connect the dots.
The dust had barely settled when select congressmen were graced with letters
laced with weapon-grade anthrax whose origins mysteriously point to a U.S.
source. Next, U.S. citizens had their Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights
sharply curtailed by the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act. Their right to privacy
was even further eroded by the just recently passed Homeland Security Act which
sets up a Total Information Awareness operation that would make George Orwell
blush.
Color-coded
warnings signifying levels of terrorist threat are announced in the media on a regular
basis -- always jacked up a notch or two in time for the holidays to further
intimidate an already fearful and paranoid public. The economy is being rocked
by one corporate scandal after another; the numbers of those without jobs,
health insurance or a place to call home continue to climb; and the few
remaining safeguards protecting the environment are quickly being dismantled.
Terrorism and other acts of violence are escalating around the globe. The
world's most powerful leader, drunk with a belief in his own invincibility,
belligerently threatens pre-emptive war and nuclear retaliation on any country
suspected of trying to undermine U.S. interests and superiority. Indeed, the
world has been plunged into an age of darkness far surpassing its worst Y2K
nightmares.
Most Americans
see themselves as innocent victims in a world gone mad and believe, quite
naively, that their government holds the moral high ground in its efforts to
establish a Pax Americana worldwide. The facts, however, reveal the United
States to be not only a part of the cycle of violence, but the largest exporter
of death and destruction this world has ever known.
Richard Grimmet
of the Congressional Research Committee reported that in fiscal year 2001, of
the $26.4 billion in registered sales of international military weapons, the
United States exported $12.2 billion, or roughly 46 percent of the total. This
represents 2.5 times more than the amount sold by the second (UK) and third
(Russia) largest exporters, 9.7 times greater than the level exported by
France, and 19 times more than that of China.
The Center for
International Policy estimates that about 80 percent of U.S. arms exports go to
non-democratic regimes notorious for gross human rights abuses against not only
their own citizenry but people of other countries as well. In 1999, of the
forty-two conflicts in the world, thirty-nine of them made use of U.S. military
equipment or technology, a whopping 92 percent rate of indirect U.S.
participation in, but direct support of, war and violence. The U.S. also trains
foreign military in the art of murder and torture in more than 70 countries and
has troops currently stationed in nearly three out of every four countries in
the world.
Sadly, the lives
of 3,000 civilians from the U.S. and many other countries were lost in the
September 11 attack, but where is the American outrage at the millions of
deaths that the U.S. has caused, directly or covertly, in the twentieth century
alone? Over 3,000 innocent Afghanis were killed in blind retaliation for
terrorist attacks with which these oppressed people had nothing to do. Add
hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths of mostly elderly, infants and
young children in Iraq due to over ten years of extreme economic sanctions,
demanded by the U.S., that prevent Iraq from importing essential medicines and
disinfecting agents because of their potential for dual usage. Don't forget the
500,000 deaths in wars supported by the U.S. in Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile,
Argentina, Haiti, Panama, and other Latin American countries over the past half
century, or the hundreds of thousands more in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
The United
States is just as guilty as any other nation in targeting civilian population
centers -- cities such as Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo were mercilessly
firebombed during World War II; atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, all resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.
Recently in
Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, the United States has resurrected and
implemented a new kind of nuclear warfare through the use of weapons outfitted
with a depleted uranium component. Upon impact, the uranium is released in
micro-sized particles that travel great distances on the wind to contaminate
air, food, soil, water; in short, anything it touches. Post Gulf War soil
samples tested in Basrah register an 84 times greater than normal background
radiation level from uranium elements, according to studies carried out by
various international organizations.
This new American-made
legacy will be remembered for its long-term, continuous assault on innocent
people and their environment. Studies conducted by Johns Hopkins University
reveal a sevenfold increase in cancer, leukemia and birth defects in Iraq since
the Gulf War. Full-term babies there are born with grotesque malformations such
as having no face, no eyes or nose, twisted, fused or missing limbs, huge heads
with no brains, no digestive tract, heart defects, severe ulcerations of the
skin, and other abnormalities.
All this is made
possible by each and every American who chooses to remain silent in the face of
U.S. military atrocities against humanity. The United States is squandering
both its status of most powerful nation and its potential to do some lasting
good by continuing to serve the gods of greed, fear, hatred, war and violence.
America should be leading the world by practicing what it preaches to other
nations. The truly powerful lead by example, not by intimidation and brute
force.
Placing
self-righteous justification and moral superiority aside, for all involved
parties seem to claim them, we need to look at war for what it really is --
murder and maiming, pure and simple. Our unquestioned faith in the use of
military threats, death and destruction to deter violence and settle
disagreements is an inherently flawed philosophy that has brought the world to
the brink of mutually assured destruction with the United States leading the
way.
The late Philip
Berrigan had it right when he spoke about "the universal American fantasy
that 'national security' can depend on weapons of mass destruction." These
weapons we insist on amassing are instead the very cause of our mortal danger.
His final words resonate as a warning to us all, "nuclear weapons are the
scourge of the earth; to mine for them, manufacture them, deploy them, use
them, is a curse against God, the human family, and the Earth itself."
In this
unparalleled period of danger and darkness brought about by the ignorance of
mad men in their lust for power, it's time for people to awaken and do their
part to transform this insane, money-making, war- mongering mentality. Imagine
what a different world this could be if everyone took personal responsibility
and vowed no longer to be a part of the ongoing cycle of government sponsored
terrorism. Imagine if the people who build (in part or whole) bombs, guns,
assault weapons and other weapons of mass destruction were suddenly to have an
attack of conscience and leave their jobs, refusing to manufacture the evil that
gets exported around the globe. Imagine how different the world could be if the
$839 billion dollars spent yearly on military expenditures worldwide (Arias
Foundation figures for FY 2001) were instead used for constructive purposes to
alleviate hunger and provide decent housing, education, health care and
meaningful employment for all.
I am convinced
that reprioritizing the use of our vast resources from our current destructive
bent towards constructive, life-affirming, humanitarian ends would be a much
more successful deterrent to terrorism than our ineffective and inane faith in
using "the violence to quell all violence." As the great Martin
Luther King, Jr. believed, "An eye for an eye only ends up making us all
blind."
Life is a series
of making choices. We can choose to take the easy path by closing our eyes and
remaining part of the evil of war and violence, whether it be through our line
of employment that may directly or indirectly contribute to government
sanctioned destruction and murder, or through the complicity of simply keeping
silent in the face of inhumane policies carried out by our government. Else, we
can choose the more difficult and courageous route of speaking out and working
towards eliminating war and weapons of mass destruction all over the world,
beginning in our own country. If we do not walk the talk of peace and
disarmament, then we are, in fact, no better than the terrorists we are
purporting to defeat.
The state and fate
of our world and the legacy we leave for future generations all come down to
the individual choices we make in our lives. As the adage from the Vietnam era
significantly states, "Just imagine if they gave a war, and nobody
came."
Doreen Miller, mother, musician and poet, is currently a Senior Lecturer
and educator of international students. She dedicates part of her time to
serving the elderly and Alzheimer patients. Email: dmiller@YellowTimes.org. This article first appeared at Yellow Times.org. Please visit Yellow Times and support
their vital work.