Imagine...

I'd like to make this more like another John's "Imagine", but on this September 11th, I'd like you to imagine something.

You're an ordinary person. You want a world where you can put in some work, and make some money, and get along well with a group of fine folks. You know there are some crazy folks who aren't too upset at killing people, but you think that the world would be a much better place if they'd just shut up with their bellyaching, and try to make the world we have right now a better place, through peace, love, and justice. But you probably won't say that out loud, because it sounds to saccharine to you.

Okay, but, here's the thing. You don't live in South Jersey or east Texas, or in North Philly or the Pacific Northwest. You live in the Middle East.

And you don't have people angrily insisting that President Bush was given intelligence that he believed, in good faith. And you don't have people who question you patriotism if you do so much as suggest that the invasion of Iraq was a bad thing. The people who do that kind of thing live in America, you see, and you're far away from America.

And you look around you, and what do you see?

You see a nation laid to waste by warfare. And you see it was all based on lies.

No, stop - stop right there! I just told you that you're not in America, where people are going to yell that Bush just made a good decision based on bad intelligence, didn't I? You're in the Middle East, where you don't have a bunch of Bush-boosters saying such things.

What you know is that Bush said there were weapons of mass destruction, and there weren't.

You don't care about how good the intel was; that's an American concern. All you know, all you see is, there was a claim made, and it was wrong, and no one cares.

No one cares. You still have people lauding the man who ordered that war as a hero.

Thousands upon thousands of people have died; probably hundreds of thousands, and quite likely many more. People have been driven from their homes in fear, and large parts of the country are still horrible to live in, even now.

And now, try to remember how you felt, after a single day of horror, seven years ago. One single day, and "only" three thousand dead bodies. And try to think about how folks in the Middle East might feel.

There's too much hatred already. There's too much war.Too many innocent people have already died.

While it's true that we can't win against our enemies with kindness, while it's true we need strength, it is only by showing a love of peace, and a demand for justice, that we can fight without creating more enemies.

Imagine...

I'd like to make this more like another John's "Imagine", but on this September 11th, I'd like you to imagine something.

You're an ordinary person. You want a world where you can put in some work, and make some money, and get along well with a group of fine folks. You know there are some crazy folks who aren't too upset at killing people, but you think that the world would be a much better place if they'd just shut up with their bellyaching, and try to make the world we have right now a better place, through peace, love, and justice. But you probably won't say that out loud, because it sounds to saccharine to you.

Okay, but, here's the thing. You don't live in South Jersey or east Texas, or in North Philly or the Pacific Northwest. You live in the Middle East.

And you don't have people angrily insisting that President Bush was given intelligence that he believed, in good faith. And you don't have people who question you patriotism if you do so much as suggest that the invasion of Iraq was a bad thing. The people who do that kind of thing live in America, you see, and you're far away from America.

And you look around you, and what do you see?

You see a nation laid to waste by warfare. And you see it was all based on lies.

No, stop - stop right there! I just told you that you're not in America, where people are going to yell that Bush just made a good decision based on bad intelligence, didn't I? You're in the Middle East, where you don't have a bunch of Bush-boosters saying such things.

What you know is that Bush said there were weapons of mass destruction, and there weren't.

You don't care about how good the intel was; that's an American concern. All you know, all you see is, there was a claim made, and it was wrong, and no one cares.

No one cares. You still have people lauding the man who ordered that war as a hero.

Thousands upon thousands of people have died; probably hundreds of thousands, and quite likely many more. People have been driven from their homes in fear, and large parts of the country are still horrible to live in, even now.

And now, try to remember how you felt, after a single day of horror, seven years ago. One single day, and "only" three thousand dead bodies. And try to think about how folks in the Middle East might feel.

There's too much hatred already. There's too much war.Too many innocent people have already died.

While it's true that we can't win against our enemies with kindness, while it's true we need strength, it is only by showing a love of peace, and a demand for justice, that we can fight without creating more enemies.