UPON THE DEATH OF ZARQAWI, HOW MANY AMERICANS WILL BE ABLE TO GET BACK TO AMERICA AND THEIR LIVES?
Commentary by Linda Zoblotsky [TX]

The mainstream press is on automatic pilot with their reporting of another victory for the Bush administration upon the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The corporate press, reporting to duty, said there is a 25 million dollar bounty being offered as a reward for the end of Zarqawi. Who is going to get that reward money and will they be offered a break from “the long war” for their courageous tour of duty? Is this a victory for the Republican Party to cherish as they head into the mid-term elections? Will Zarqawi’s death rally people to pay tribute to the war-monger politicians at the polls? Are Americans that blood thirsty?

Some people do hold steadfast to the belief that we must destroy Bush’s “axis-of-evil”. Some people will tell you with blind faith that we must kill all of the “terrorists” and all those who “harbor terrorists”. Karl Rove has tutored the numb-minded George W. Bush to make some speeches to his numb-minded supporters who really believe we can destroy every last bad person. A sleepy congress has voted YES, YES and YES for the neo-con vision of never-ending war.

As Americans celebrate the removal of Saddam, a statue of Saddam being toppled and numerous elections in Iraq, other people's families and friends, are loosing life and limbs and some of those who served in Iraq come home with shaken brain syndrome from the damage caused by “improvised explosive devises”. At best these men and women loosing part of their faces in the bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq celebrate being able walk again, while the citizens of Iraq are trying to live in a country that is demolished from the cluster of U.S. bombs.

The press calls those “brown” human citizens, fighting the occupying army, “insurgents”. The press uses the phrase: "improvised explosive devise". The press should call the explosives “the bombs of the citizen armies defending their land”. The dailies use the word "improvised" to diminish the warfare technology of those citizens of a sovereign country, who want the U.S. to leave.

The citizen armies defending their lands are killing and destroying the lives of American troops and destroying the lives of families of American troops with their bombs. “Improvised” sounds like a bunch of high school kids, who are also high” who suddenly decided to put on a show of attack. Most of the citizens that join the war against the occupying forces are beyond improvising and high. They are angry and determined. 20 of those citizens defending their country will take Zarqawi's place.

And then some headlines say Zarqawi survived the strike and then died. And Bush makes statements with his frozen smirk to the effect that even though we have captured Zarqawi the attacks on American troops will continue.

Is this why young people should join the military? Should NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND be used as a tool to recruit young people in “the long war”? While India’s Institute of Technology trains the best engineering minds in the world, what kind of a country do we want to live in? Do we want to live in a country where boy scouts are being brain-washed to fight a “long war” for a few elites? As American Idols are being eliminated, how many of other people’s lives are being destroyed in a war where the reason for the mission is to stop the “terrorists”? And as the United States is engaged in stopping the “terrorists”, how much should the American people tolerate of a government that engages in terrorist behavior in order to kill all the “terrorists”? If we kill all of the “terrorists”, are we not supporting a policy which is in engaging in ethnic cleansing of “brown” people? In supporting the war in Iraq, most of us are supporting a war where other people die, other people loose limbs and other people’s families struggle to survive on food stamps, while we rush to buy a PEOPLE Magazine with a 5 million dollar picture of Angelina’s baby. Will Angelina’s baby, the “new savior” fight the war on terrorism? In the “long war” how many of other people’s babies will be recruited by the man who ran as the “education president”?