Who cares?
Does the picture above disturb you?
Does the thought of holding your child’s lifeless body with limbs blown off turn your stomach?
If you answered yes, then the larger question is just how much does it disgust you? Does it upset you enough to take to the streets in protest? Or write your congressperson or show up at their office to tell them how much you don’t like it? If you haven’t spoken out to your neighbors and coworkers then I have a hard time believing you find the picture above repugnant. Multiply that picture by tens of thousands and you’ve got the war in Iraq and it’s effect on a nation of people who’s only crime is to be in the American military’s gunsights.
Lately the news has broken the story of the alleged massacre (war crime) in Haditha. When the details come out, if it is proven that a war crime took place, watch the rush of lawmakers and officials who will recoil in mock horror. Then look to see how many of those who will decry such acts voted for it in the first place and continue to support this type of action with their votes. But Haditha is nothing new. Remember Fallujah where the US dropped napalm on civilians, (then lied about it) burning hundreds alive? Massacres of thousands of civilians is nothing new.
Polls indicate that the majority of Americans don’t approve of the US Government’s actions in Iraq. A shorter list perhaps would be of the people who don’t have any problem at all with what the picture symbolizes. People like George Bush. Dick Cheney. Donald Rumsfeld. Karl Rove. Condoleeza Rice. Paul Wolfowitz. Richard Perle. Douglas Feith. Colin Powell. These are the people who started the war in Iraq with lies. Add to that list the Bill O’Reilleys, the Rush Limbaughs, the Ann Coulters and countless other “journalists” and pundits and the “news” organizations they work for who promoted the lies. Don’t forget all the members of Congress and the Senate who voted in favor of the war. Finally you have Americans who sit on their asses. Americans whose tax dollars pay for the bullets and the bombs that wreak the destruction portrayed in the picture above. You say you don’t like the picture? Then DO SOMETHING about it! Apathy is no different than consent.
