The battle in Afghanistan is almost over, though maybe the war on terrorism has just begun. I felt relieved with the major victories this week, hoping the United Nations could go back and give aid to those who are in desperate need of it. I’ve heard however that in some parts of Afghanistan it is already too late, that many thousands have died. Are the dead innocents the necessary causalities of war? I don’t know. All I know is that once we say that such death was acceptable, we fall into the mindset of the terrorists, who in their insanity believed that it was morally right to fly planes into buildings where thousands of innocents were going about their lives. As A. A. Attanasio (one of my favorite authors) once said, “We must always fear evil, lest we become like our enemies.”
And who are our enemies? The terrorists and those who aid them seem to be the obvious answer. But if that is the case, then Reagan and Bush senior should join the ranks of the 1,000-plus people who are in jail, though no one can get a response on who they are or what the charges were. These two men are part of the conspiracy that gave the Taliban $6 billion and had the CIA train them. Being South Asian, I can’t believe my people in this country are suffering for their stupidity, creating something they could not control. I am angered beyond belief that 200 universities have given over names of students to the FBI. I am sickened by the arrests that have been done under the auspices of the unconstitutional US-PATRIOT Act, I am terrified of the recent move by Congress to allow suspected terrorists to be tried in private military tribunals. When I went to hear a member of the ACLU speak, he was quick to point out that it was this type of legislation that lead to the Japanese internment camps. Are we trying to make the country safe for all its citizens, or just the ones who aren’t Muslim or look like they could be?
Every day, our freedoms are being curtailed, to keep us “safe.” I would feel safer if we wouldn’t be so willing to let millions of Afghan people starve to death so we could continue the war during winter. The war may end soon, but it’s what we almost did or could do that shocks me. The children disabled or displaced by years of war had nothing to do with the terrorists, but we refused to stop the bombing so they could get aid. I can only hang my head in shame as an American. This is why millions around the world protested U.S. actions in the last couple months. It is this disregard for the lives of people in other countries by our government that threatens the citizens of this nation. And while I’ve admitted before that we can’t suddenly shift our policies, we would have won the war anyway if we had waited to begin bombing after aid had gotten in, or worked with the UNCHR to ensure the safety of civilians. If we truly seek justice, we must be just in its pursuit.
At this point, many of you are wondering how I can be so unpatriotic. In truth, it is my very identification with this nation that makes me feel this way. As Bishop O’Brian said at the Veteran’s Mass, this country is the “great experiment.” Here one can even burn the flag of the nation under its own laws, and not be punished. This is a democracy, and that means each of us is responsible for being informed and getting involved in our government’s actions. If more people had protested the CIA training terrorists to topple governments before, we wouldn’t be fighting the Taliban or bin Laden today.
If more people had actually loved their neighbor, the Red Scare and the American camps for the Japanese wouldn’t have become part of our history. If our founding fathers could have seen, as they wrote, “All men are created equal”, then slavery wouldn’t have put us in such a dark pit that even now we can’t figure a way out of it.
In times such as these, some say one should stand behind the President, but I say that it is now more than ever that we cannot forget that the President should stand behind US, that he is OUR servant. It is only by holding our government accountable in the world that we can truly keep ourselves safe from terrorist attacks. As Ginsberg says in HOWL, “When you are not safe, I am not safe.” If we clutch our children tightly, strangely hoping children dying elsewhere will keep them safe, this will only show the world that America doesn’t care about anyone else. This is not the time to forsake any our rights that Ashcroft decides we don’t need, but to demand their survival after intelligent consideration.
What does it mean to be a terrorist anyway? Under the new and very unconstitutional laws, anyone who is willing to break the law or condemn U.S. policy in the name of what they believe is right could be considered a terrorist. Sit-ins, marches, rallies?these can all now be acts of conspiracy. I don’t want terrorists to slip through the cracks, but even as we speak no one has caught the anthrax spreaders despite the new laws. And, after the attacks by planes in New York and D.C., South Asians, Arabs and Muslims were terrified by the attacks against them. Shouldn’t those racist perpetrators be arrested and tried in these secretive military courts? Bush had even considered asking neighborhoods to get involved in their own terrorist watches, the ACLU speaker warned.
Now, even as we continue to question the importance of our rights in the aftermath of terror, political parties in India are using this as a chance to declare Muslim groups seeking rights in that nation as “terrorists,” much to the shame of my Hindu background. Once, the American Revolution was described as the shot heard around the world. It seems others can now hear that sound dying as well.
