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Wake Up, America

By Leo Glenn

Delivered on February 15, 2003 at the Peace Vigil in Butler, Pennsylvania, USA

 

As I was putting the newspaper ad together for this Peace Vigil, I came across this image of an Iraqi child. And it surprised me a little, and I thought, "So that's what an Iraqi child looks like." Because you don't see many images of Iraqi children on the nightly news or in the papers. And that's very strange to me, as we appear to be in the final stages of preparation for a war against this little girl's country. Day after day, our administration and our media barrage us with language like "Terrorist, Threat, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Anthrax, Evildoers, Axis of Evil."

What we're not hearing are words like "Children, Safety, Civilians, Casualties." But what's even more surprising than the absence of these words and images, is that so many Americans don't even seem to notice their absence. That's strange because we Americans like to think of ourselves as a civilized nation. We like to see ourselves as a compassionate, enlightened, generous, ethical and spiritual people. We like to envision America as the torchbearer of justice and freedom to the rest of the world. "They hate us because of our freedoms," President Bush has said. And I'm sure, if asked, the president would say that our military will do everything possible to protect the civilian population of Iraq, and that the real threat to Iraqi children is not the U.S., but Saddam Hussein. And let me be quite clear, I don't dispute that Saddam is a threat to his own people.

But unfortunately, you don't have to dig very deep to see that our own record in Iraq belies our professed good will toward the Iraqi people. By the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the civilian death toll in Iraq had risen to 111,000 people, 70,000 of whom were children under the age of 15. The U.S. and Britain were also kind enough to drop between 390 and 900 tons of depleted uranium, a radioactive, carcinogenic substance that will continue to poison the soil, air, water and people of Iraq for the next 4.5 billion years, and is a probable contributing cause of Gulf War Syndrome in our own veterans.

When asked after the war about the numbers of civilian casualties, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, replied that frankly, those numbers didn't interest him very much. And we wonder why they hate us. Here is a picture of one of those numbers that didn't warrant the interest of General Powell, now our Secretary of State. This two-year-old died of malnutrition and disease as a result of our kindness and generosity toward the Iraqi people. And we wonder why they hate us.

 

 

The U.S. then pressured the United Nations to inflict crippling economic sanctions on the already impoverished and war-ravaged people of Iraq, resulting in from 100,000 to 600,000 deaths of children under 5, with most estimates being around half a million. On May 12, 1996, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was interviewed by Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes. Stahl asked the question, "We have heard that a half a million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And--you know, is the price worth it?"

And Secretary Albright gave her now infamous answer. She said, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it." The price is worth it? Tell me, what is worth the price of half a million children? That's the entire population of this city [Butler, Pennsylvania], times 33. That's 3 times the entire population of Butler County. And that's over 150 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. And we wonder why they hate us.

And if our administration is to be believed, we come to the most hideously shameful realization of all. We're being told that the sanctions haven't worked, that Saddam went on building his weapons of mass destruction anyway, which would mean that our tragically misguided policies have caused the deaths of 500,000 children, children who died for no reason at all.

And now our president is threatening to kill even more innocent children. Because, make no mistake, anyone who has seen war will tell you that it is always the innocent who suffer the most. And despite what our administration and military tell us, there is no such thing as a smart bomb.

No one wants war, they say, but we will do what we must to protect our country. But is war the only answer? I say to you that war is not an answer at all. War is a failure of vision and understanding. War is a failure of our humanity. War is the single most uncivilized act. We can only justify our wars by blinding ourselves to their grim realities. We sanitize our memories. We delete the Wounded Knees, the Dresdens, the My Lais, the Nagasakis and the Hiroshimas. We consume our attention with perceived threats and strategies and troop buildups, like pieces on a chessboard, and we leave out the devastation, the ruin, the waste, the smart bombs that weren't so smart after all, and the children.

So what about this little child? Her future is in our hands. What sort of future will we make for her? What will we teach her by our example? Will we teach her and generations after her to hate America? Will we teach her that we believe that the life of one American is worth more than the lives of thousands of her people? Will we teach her that violence and death and devastation are just the way of the world? Will we teach her that in our eyes, she and her family and friends and neighbors are nothing more than collateral damage, just numbers we're not particularly interested in, that her death is a price that is worth it?

Or will we teach her a better way? Will we teach her that we value her life as we value the lives of our own children? That we've learned from our own mistakes that violence only begets more violence, war begets war, or in the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King, "It is no longer a choice, my friends, between violence and non-violence. It is either non-violence or non-existence." And, "If we do not act, we will surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight."
Whenever I get discouraged about the apparent apathy of the American people, I think of people like the Rev. King. And the great anthropologist and social activist Margaret Mead, who said, "Those who still cling to the old, simple definition of patriotism have not yet recognized that since Hiroshima there cannot be winners and losers in a war, but only losers."

And I think of Chief Oren Lyons, the faithkeeper of the Onandaga people, who said in his 1992 address to the United Nations, "It seems to me that we are living in a time of prophecy, a time of definitions and decisions. We are the generation with the responsibilities and the option to choose the The Path of Life for the future of our children…Even though you and I are in different boats, you in your boat and we in our canoe, we share the same River of Life -- what befalls me, befalls you. And downstream, downstream in this River of Life, our children will pay for our selfishness, for our greed, and for our lack of vision. We can still alter our course. It is NOT too late. We still have options. We need the courage to change our values to the regeneration of our families, the life that surrounds us. Given this opportunity, we can raise ourselves. We must join hands with the rest of Creation and speak of Common Sense, Responsibility, Brotherhood, and PEACE."

For ultimately, I still believe in the inherent kindness, decency and compassion of the American people. We're not bad people, we've just…fallen asleep. We've been lulled to sleep by the whispering of our air conditioners, the droning of our televisions, and the humming of our SUVs. Like the Pink Floyd song, we're becoming "Comfortably Numb."
But those of us standing here today, and the millions of others standing together all over this nation, we are the alarm clock on the bed stand of America. And we need to ring out loud and clear. Wake up, America! It's time to wake up, and stop this insane rush to war. It's time to wake up and stop the dismantling of our civil liberties. It's time to wake up and reclaim an active role as citizens of this great democracy. Wake up, America! Wake up, America! It's time to wake up and take our country back!

 

References

Photo of Iraqi Child - Our Common Responsibility: The Impact of a New War on Iraqi Children International Study Team. http://www.warchild.ca

Persian Gulf War Civilian Casualties - The Human Cost of the Gulf War: Will History Repeat Itself in Iraq? International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. http://www.ippnw.org/gulfwarfacts.pdf

Depleted Uranium - Uranium Medical Research Center http://www.umrc.net/,
Democracy Now! Interview with Dr. Asaf Durakovic, former U.S. military doctor, who was the first to test Gulf War veterans for radiation exposure, and was terminated for his research. http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20030130.html

The Austin Chronicle, "Letters at 3 AM," Michael Ventura http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-11-15/cols_ventura.html
Colin Powell's Comment -We're All Going to Suffer From It - An Interview with Howard Zinn, Gadfly Online, http://www.gadflyonline.com/02-25-02/ftr-howard_zinn.html

We Are Also in the World: A Bulls-Eye View of Baghdad, by Ramzi Kysia, Iraq Peacebuilding Program, http://www.afsc.org/iraq/guide/worldalso.shtm

Colin Powell's Military Record - Sir Colin Powell: Why is He Being Called a 'Son-of-a-Bush'? by Keidi Obi Awadu, http://www.africa2000.com/CNDX/cpowell.htm

Photo of Dying Iraqi Child - The Human Cost of the Gulf War: Will History Repeat Itself in Iraq? International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. http://www.ippnw.org/gulfwarfacts.pdf

Deaths of Iraqi Children from U.N. Sanctions - The Human Cost of the Gulf War: Will History Repeat Itself in Iraq? International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. http://www.ippnw.org/gulfwarfacts.pdf

The Austin Chronicle, "Letters at 3 AM," Michael Ventura http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-11-15/cols_ventura.html

The Politics of Dead Children: Have Sanctions Against Iraq Murdered Millions? By Matt Welch, ReasonOnline, http://reason.com/0203/fe.mw.the.shtml

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Comment - We Think the Price is Worth It: Media Uncurious about Iraq Policy's Effect - There or Here by Rahul Mahajan, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), http://www.fair.org/extra/0111/iraq.html

The Price is Worth It by Edward S. Herman, Znet, http://www.zmag.org/hermanworthit.htm

The Austin Chronicle, "Letters at 3 AM," Michael Ventura http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-11-15/cols_ventura.html

Butler and Butler County Population Statistics - Population of Butler (US Census 2000): 15,121; Population of Butler County (2001 Estimate): 176,593
http://butler.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm
http://www.fedstats.gov/qf/states/42/42019.html

Death Toll from the Terrorist Attacks of 9/11/2001 - http://www.september11news.com/911Art.htm

The Wounded Knee Massacre - CANKPE OPI, http://www.dickshovel.com/WKmasscre.html
Massacre at Wounded Knee, 1890, http://www.ibiscom.com/knee.htm

The Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany - The WWII Dresden Holocost - 'A Single Column of Flame', Rense.com, http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm

The My Lai Massacre - Vietnam Online, The American Experience, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/mylai.html

Sir Colin Powell: Why is He Being Called a 'Son-of-a-Bush'? by Keidi Obi Awadu, http://www.africa2000.com/CNDX/cpowell.htm

The Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - http://www.exploratorium.edu/nagasaki/mainn.html

A Bomb WWW Museum, http://www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/index.html
Medical Aspects of Atomic Bomb Disaster in Nagasaki, http://www-sdc.med.nagasaki-u.ac.jp/n50/disaster/medical-E.html
http://www.peacewire.org/photoexhibits/Hiroshima/photo1.html

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Quotes - The Spirit of Martin Luther King: US Churches are Preparing for Civil Disobedience Against War by Giles Fraser, January 24, 2003, The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,881282,00.html

Margaret Mead Quote - Postscript to September 11-What Would Margaret Mead Say? By William O. Beeman, http://www.mead2001.org/beeman.html

Chief Oren Lyons Quote - http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/OLatUNin92.html

Lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" - http://www.lyricsstyle.com/p/pinkfloyd/comfortablynumb.html

What About the Death Toll? by Derrick Z. Jackson, The Boston Globe, February 14, 2003
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0214-03.htm