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Wednesday, December 17, 2003 |
FEATURED ARTICLES
- Saddam's
Capture Is Bitter Sweet, by Michael O'Gorman, Peaceroots
Alliance
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true
is really true, there would be little hope of advance."
- - Orville Wright
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - DECEMBER 17th
1903 -- At 10:35 EST, Orville
Wright made the world's first manned,
powered &, most importantly, controlled flight of a heavier-than-air craft.
He & his partner/brother's best flight that day lasted just 59 seconds, but
it demonstrated for the first time that the air could be used for travel. A hundred
years later, humans can fly non-stop halfway around the world for a few hundred
dollars.
In contrast to the harm done by the fighter jets & bombers of the world,
many rescue personnel & private pilots with big hearts use their aircraft
for many worthy causes. Here are a couple examples of civilian pilots doing good
deeds:
LightHawk (sometimes called The Environmental
Air Force)
http://www.lighthawk.org/
AngelFlight (transporting medical patients lacking financial
where-with-all)
http://www.angelflight.org/
For those interested, following are a few links to articles on the future
of flight.
The Next Hundred Years Of Flight - New Scientist.com
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994483
...A High Tech Ride Into The Next Century Of Flight - National
Geographic
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0312/feature1/index.html
The Future of Flight - Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviation/article/0,12543,518780,00.html
RHINO HERE:
There seems to be a wide variety of essays on the internet responding
to the capture of Saddam Hussein, a variety even among the Anti-war/Social Justice
community. There's Michael Moore's comparison of the butcher of Baghdad to Dr.
Frankenstein's monster, with Rummie & his boss, Ron Reagan, & cohorts
being the doctor who created the monster. http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17389
William Rivers Pitt predicts, "There will be no trial for Hussein,
at least nothing in public, because he might start shouting about the back pay
he is owed from his days as an employee of the American government." http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17391
But for today's RHINO'S
BOTTOM LINE, I've chosen remarks that speak for me,
by Michael O'Gorman, one of the founders of The Peaceroots Alliance. http://www.peaceroots.org
Since 9/11/01, Peaceroots has initiated several unique projects attempting
to teach & promote peace. Check out the More Than Warmth international kids
peace project at:
http://www.peaceroots.org/quilts/index.htm
...and the "Signs Of Peace" billboards across the nation project,
at:
http://www.peaceroots.org/billboards/index.htm
7:58:28 AM 
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Saddam's Capture Is Bitter Sweet
by Michael O'Gorman, Peaceroots Alliance, 12/16/03
I woke up Sunday morning, my one day off, at the insane hour of 4 a.m. Something happened in Iraq I thought. So I got up, flipped on the TV and saw Saddam, looking like a street person, in the hands of gloating Americans. I'm not normally psychic, but somehow I was yesterday. It was disturbing. One of those weird angst-ridden moments that I knew I would have to sort out the whirling thoughts and emotions that I was feeling. One of which was why can't I see things in the simple black-and-white formulas that most of my countrymen chose to.
It was bitter-sweet. Sweet because I came to hear about Hussein, and his reign of terror, during the 1980's, when our country was backing both sides of the war between Iran and Iraq. Supporting Iraq to get retribution against the folks that replaced our Shah. And supporting Iran to get money to finance other crimes against humanity in Central America. The war between Iran and Iraq effected me greatly at the time because it was probably the most horrendous war on the planet since Vietnam, with both countries sending wave upon wave of young men to slaughter, a la World War I. And because US soldiers weren't dying, no one was protesting. So it was sweet to see this man Saddam finally captured. But it was bitter to see it made a victory by the same amoral people who once supported him.
In some ways the last few months have been too easy for us, opponents of the invasion of Iraq. At least half, if not a majority, of Americans had concluded that going to Iraq was a mistake, our post-war policy a disaster, and maybe, just maybe, Bush and his crowd should go. I wasn't feeling like a pariah like I did after 9-11 when calls for revenge and "America First" left me cold. The disaster in Iraq was making opposing war almost fashionable. Even the traditionally gutless Democrats began jockeying for who had the most antiwar stance. But what many of us who have been around awhile know, this opposition is often a mile wide and a few inches deep. The White House knew that, and they knew that anything - another attack, even unsuccessful, on US soil, discovery of WMD, even fake, or the capture of Saddam or bin Laden - any one of these things could buoy their support.
I remember saying before the war started, that I liked distancing ourselves from any groups who were apologetic for Hussein or other international tyrants, because it should be "us", not the US, leading the fight against them. In the days leading up to the war I wrote that "we oppose this pre-emptive, unauthorized attack because it will take us farther from, not closer to, a world without tyranny and terror." And, if the antiwar/global justice movement could become the vanguard of opposition to thugs like Hussein, then we would prevail. But, unfortunately, messages get lost and much of the recently inflated opposition to the war was based on cost, in dollars and American lives, and whether we can win or not. I knew we were in trouble when virtually all the Democrats in Congress said their opposition to the $87 Billion price tag (partial) was because of the $22 Billion for reconstruction, not the $65 Billion for more warfare. None (except maybe Kucinich) suggested the other way around.
And the antiwar candidate, Dean, says he wouldn't drop one penny from the military budget, already equal to the military budgets of the entire rest of the world. And dwarfs by forty times all the non-military aid given to the rest of the world. So on we go. Here's hoping that Hussein gets a real trial, not a US propaganda stunt, and we find out not only who he killed but who gave him his weapons, and how many died in that horribly tragic war that the Western world let go on because it was Arab vs. Arab. And here's to rededicating ourselves, because the road to change will not be easy and the changes will not be superficial.
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Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
All copyrights belong to original publisher.
6:45:26 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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