The disintegration of Yugoslavia into ethnic enclaves is too complex for those with passing interest to understand. There are no clear good and bad guys. But it was clear before the U.S. led effort to stop Slobodan Milosevic’s aggression towards non-ethnic Serbs that too many innocent people were suffering and dying in the fighting. At the onset the U.S. did not want to take the lead in managing the conflict because the issue did not firmly fit in our view of national interest. We preferred that the European powers handle their own problems. In time we learned that they either could not or would not, so we found ourselves heading a coalition to execute an air war against Serbia. It was good that the U.S. led efforts to stop the ethnic cleansing motivated by Serbian radical nationalism espoused by Milosevic. His motives and methods were reminiscent of Nazism. But the merciless bombing of Serbian cities clearly was not all good. The NATO forces also made horrendous mistakes. The bombing of civilian convoys and the Chinese embassy killed noncombatants thus the "innocent." And while the U.S. intervened in an Eastern Europe conflict where tens of thousands had died, we sat idle as hundreds of thousands of Hutus and Tutsis killed each other in Rwanda. Many easily find evil in that lack of intervention.
In the world of
geopolitical chess there is much unsavory maneuvering that many would argue
is necessary to protect national interest, but to distinguish between the
good and the evil a line of morale principal must be held. The Gulf War
found the United States facing Iraq, an enemy we had earlier supported in
its war against Iran. The U.S. support of Saddam had no moral foundation.
Our actions were based on pure national interest as conceived by men who
believe the ends justify the means. In fact the Iran Contra scandal
uncovered the U.S. also helping Iran in their war effort against Iraq.
Playing both sides and supporting leaders who send tens of thousands to die
in a war that once at end benefited the U.S. more than either warring state.
Is this reasoning and morality any saner than that of the WTC attackers?
The U.S. action to check Iraq's aggression against Kuwait and stop Saddam’s development of nuclear and biochemical weapons was necessary. Hussein’s conduct in the region was so outrageous that he alienated his natural allies: Arabs and Muslims, and forced them into the arms of the West and Israel. Saddam’s vision for Iraq is tyranny. But the continued economic sanctions against the people of Iraq are not justifiable. According to a U.N. report the sanctions have contributed to the death of 500,000 children. Children are the definition of innocent. Can there not be a measure of evil in our actions no matter how small or indirect our complicity when so many children have died?
What may well be the most immediate clouding of truth is the lie of our everyday lives. We are the richest country in the world yet there are portions of major cities and rural areas with poverty rates rivaling the poorest countries. We have the best health care system in the world, yet we deny access to a significant number of our citizens. Violence is a way of life in the United States. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report over 1,400,000 violent crimes were committed in the United States in 1999. The National Crime and Victimization Survey of the same year reported over 7 million victims of those violent crimes. Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, James Byrd, Mathew Shepard, church burnings, clinic bombings and blaming my GLBT brothers and sisters for Sep 11th are a few of the many daily horrors we inflict upon each other, citizen to citizen. Are we naive enough to believe that as the populace of the most powerful nation in the world, our need to exact violence towards each other does not show itself in our actions towards people in other nations?
Please do not
misunderstand my intention nor take my words out of context. I do not wish
to label my country evil. To call the United States evil is to ignore the
good works, enormous contributions, and vision of freedom we have given the
world. But to claim American virtue unsoiled by its many horrible acts in
the name of national interest is to tell an evil lie. A lie that will not
serve the nation well as we move deeper into a new millennium and look for
ways to live on an increasingly shrinking globe with other world citizens in
mutual respect.
We must be
truthful with ourselves to see that in our zeal to punish Asama bin Laden we
have condoned the evil of killing the innocent. We must be truthful with
ourselves as we craft our policies in the war against terrorism, so that we
can lessen the evil that will accompany the good of containing a system that
would force us to live in a theocracy. Fascist fundamentalism be it Islamic,
Christian, Jewish or any other belief system must be held at bay or
vanquished when possible. But justice demands freedom replace fascism and
the interest of humanity replace national interest. The world is now a
global village. We can no longer pretend what happens in far off lands will
not affect us.
I love this nation. I love it dearly. It has afforded me great opportunity, comfort and confidence as a world citizen. But I love my family and the earth more. And while I am willing to die in defense of freedom, I will not die in defense of a myth. To be the land of the free and home of the brave we must take all people's freedom serious. We must begin to see all citizens of the world as Americans or we run the risk of destroying our own freedom and finally ourselves.
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United States Constitution
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Jan / Feb / Mar 2002
