I Saw It Coming and Did Nothing to Stop It
by Jillian Aldebron
Women in Black participated in the Mother's Day March for Peace in Bath
I come here today because I have been silent for too long, because I am finally compelled to act. I am propelled out of my bourgeois, middle-aged, single-mom torpor to demand that the U.S. stop its military and economic subjugation of oil-rich countries in the Middle East and Central Asia; to demand that my tax dollars be used to rein in the avarice of pharmaceutical manufacturers that feed off the failing health of the elderly, instead of being used to produce shrapnel-scarred children and obliterate the infrastructure of civil society in countries labeled "rogue"; to insist that the current stewards of American democracy take better care of the constitutional promises with which they were entrusted by the electorate, and not squander them on ill-considered bargains that trade liberty for security. Why do I act now? It's simple: September 11th.
As I watched New York's twin monoliths belch smoke and collapse into undifferentiated rubble studded with incinerated body parts, two things happened to me. First, I was overcome by an irresistible sense of future memory, a blunt realization that I had known it would come to this—had to come to this—all along, that I was witnessing the inevitable consummation of overweening arrogance, contempt for other cultures, insouciant greed. I had seen it myself during years of development work in Africa. We installed water pumps to bring clean drinking water to far-flung villages, but only American-made pumps of complicated construction that required extensive maintenance and for which spare parts were hard to come by. There were durable appropriate-technology pumps available, but unfortunately these were not made in the U.S.A. We promoted birth control devices that were outlawed for that purpose in this country, and encouraged women to decide privately whether to have more babies and not consult with their husbands; we were not above breaking up a marriage or two. We invested in growing rice in the desert and planting school gardens with crops that no one (yet) would eat, to guarantee buyers for U.S. equipment, seeds, and pesticides, rather than invest in indigenous food sources that did not require foreign inputs. We pressured governments to lower import duties on American cigarettes, making this a quid pro quo for bilateral aid, so that cigarettes would be affordable in countries where children regularly went hungry. We considered this to be a "humanitarian" relationship! This was not America vying for lucrative arms deals, commandeering cheap labor, or capturing market share. This was the way we behaved when we were being beneficent, compassionate! We looked out for No. 1, and the consequences for those objects of global conquest be damned.
Well, here were the consequences, alright. My second reaction was more personally devastating: it was my fault. I sat back and soaked up the benefits of a foreign policy I decried, a neocolonial imperative I deplored. I tanked up my SUV with gas I knew was at least one-third the price of gasoline in the rest of the world. I ran my air-conditioner at full blast. I wore Nike tennis shoes and ate Kraft food. I bought bottled water lest my family ingest too heavy a dosage of arsenic or chloramine from the public water supply. I noticed that the labels on our clothes read "Dominican Republic" or "India," but they were stylish and cheap and I did not have much disposable income. I did not write to those elected to represent me at the table of power because I was busy. I did not write letters to the editor of the newspapers that enraged me. I let it happen. I was to blame.
On Sept. 20, in his address to a joint session of Congress, Pres. Bush said that those who committed the destruction on Sept. 11 did it because they hate our American "freedoms—our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." I hold fast to these freedoms and insist on my right to exercise them; clearly I was to blame.
On Oct. 7, the President reminded me that "we're a peaceful nation." and that same day I let him launch Operation Enduring Freedom in my name. In the first five days that we "defended our way of life," my federal income taxes helped pummel Afghanistan with some 740 satellite-guided 2,000 lb. Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs); 1,000 Mk82 dumb bombs; 50 CBU-87 cluster bombs; 2 bunker busting GBU-37s; 1,000 and 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs, including a BLU-109 improved penetrating warhead version; and 50-60 Tomahawk cruise missiles. I give you the details because, at the time, military experts voiced concern at the timidity of our airborne invasion. On Oct. 26, my bombs accidentally decimated four International Red Cross warehouses in Afghanistan containing food and blankets for 55,000 disabled persons. Now I was slowly starving the disabled to death.
In his Nov. 7 interview with a Pakistani journalist, Osama bin Laden said that the entirety of America was "responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims" because Americans pay taxes and elect their government, and Congress endorses all government measures. He included U.S support for the autocratic regime in Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and enforcement of sanctions against Iraq in his catalogue of atrocities. A University of New Hampshire professor counted in excess of 4,000 civilian casualties of war in Afghanistan alone. How many more were killed in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories, and in Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Israel? And did I really think that dropping bright yellow packets of peanut butter and jelly from 20,000 feet up on the millions of exhausted, displaced Afghani wanderers below could forestall their transformation into collateral damage?
We have been told by Pres. Bush that the U.S. is "a nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, reject murderers and reject evil." I would like to believe that this is true. It can only be true if our actions are worthy of our rhetoric. As we revel today in the camaraderie of kindred spirits, the U.S. is continuing to ready troops for an invasion of Iraq. It is assisting the Iraqi political opposition to organize so that it can assume control of the country once Saddam Hussein is removed from power. The Pentagon is studying the number of U.S. military casualties that would be acceptable to the American public, and the numbers cited are in the tens of thousands. No one is considering the magnitude of Iraqi "collateral damage" that would be acceptable. We cannot assert our fundamental commitment to justice, to peace, while gearing up for slaughter. We must make a choice—and we must act now.
Jillian Aldebron practices law in Presque Isle
Back to Peace Talk Index, Summer, 2002