Ever a trend-bucker, I shall not gorge myself at the trough of post-9/11 American narcissism (USA!! THE NUMBER-ONE VICTIMS!!) to discuss how George W. Bush’s bloodlust is causing me angst. Iraqi peasants have already suffered through a decade of harsh sanctions and harsher military assaults for the crime of living under a dictator, and now they face another massacre. They are the central figures here. It just happens that the amplification of their suffering serves exactly none of my best interests.

I do not drive an SUV, so I don’t need a drummed-up war just so Western concerns can recolonize the world’s second-largest oil field. How about mass transit instead of mass murder — or at least a Toyota Prius instead of a Ford Expedition?

I don’t need to distract the American people from White House complicity in the economic terrorism committed by odious corporations that have destroyed so many families. No war for me.

Unlike W., I don’t need to deploy the Pentagon to create a horrific diversion from my irresponsibility (or worse, responsibility?) surrounding 9/11.

I needn’t conjure up bogeymen to provoke fearful American silence as the Bill of Rights is decimated by religious fundamentalists, racists, and misogynists who dress like Ward Cleaver and attend Sunday services. During "wartime," penny-ante patriots like Kaiser Ashcroft, court-appointed president Bush, and Shadow Emperor Cheney face fewer challenges as they rationalize police-state activity. This is one of the reasons reactionaries are always looking to go to war.

If you love this country, you must ask: why send soldiers halfway around the world to purportedly defend freedoms that are under life-threatening assault at home?

This war will provoke rather than curtail terror. At least a few of the Iraqis, insane from grief after the upcoming hostilities, will join the ranks of terrorists who hope to visit American and Allied shores with ugly replies to the upcoming volley of Red, White, and Blue carnage.

I also don’t want America’s economically conscripted soldiers to take part in this insanity. These combatants needn’t be wounded or killed to be victimized by war. Most will come home and suffer their post-traumatic stress in silence and obscurity. (How many Desert Storm yellow-ribbon-wavers have spent five seconds doing anything for that war’s now-forgotten vets?) A dangerous few will follow the path of Timothy McVeigh or John Allen Muhammad and make a mockery of homeland security. Americans are more likely to die as the result of a crazed act of a damaged vet than at the behest of Saddam Hussein.

This isn’t Gulf War II, it’s Spanish-American War VI or VII. Remember the Maine? Please do. It was a hoax, and so are the rationales for the slaughter about to ensue in Iraq. Saddam is a vile and reprehensible dictator, but there is no believable evidence that he was involved in last year’s attacks on the USA. What could make Saddam more dangerous is that if cornered, he could decide to use anything in his arsenal.

If it’s now open season on repugnant and undemocratic leaders, then any number of heads of state, many of whom are close US cronies, had better start liquidating their national treasuries and checking to see if that invitation from the Duvaliers to visit France still stands.

People should not be killed simply because they live under the insane rule of an undemocratic strongman. If that becomes the only criterion necessary to rationalize an assault on unwilling subjects, then it will be time for some angst — and air-raid shelters — of our own.

Go to Barry Crimmins' web page.

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