PureVolume

Living With War Today

On Neil Young's website he asked for people to write in and answer these questions. So, I did and they were posted for a few days. Here are my answers:

1. Why are we living with war today?
We are living with war today because many of our so-called leaders are actually very religious. Only what they truly worship is the Almighty Buck. And its all about the money in its many forms. We are in Iraq because of black gold, plain and simple, its the oil stupid. Saddam Hussein had sanctions against him imposed by the powers that be, and these sanctions to sell his oil would only be lifted if he allowed the weapons inspectors in. Hussein knew that eventually the sanctions would be lifted and he had his deals in place to sell his oil, but not to the US or Great Britain, but to Russia, China and other "competition". So, the US went in, under the Smokescreen of weapons and terrorism to put in a puppet government who would void those other deals and sell to the US and G.B. Oil has been the reason for many conflicts and wars and there's an excellent synopsis of this here:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2003/2003companiesiniraq.htm.
But it' all gone horribly wrong.

2. Who is the enemy?
The enemy of us all is greed. Greed spawns acts of utter selfishness at the expense of all others. Greed does not recognize our inherent bond as a sentient race of beings, and does not honor the fact that we can ALL have what we all need without hurting ourselves or others. There is enough food and other resources for all in this world, there's just an uneven distribution.

Greed insists that personal gain is at all costs and that mostly everyone and everything is expendable in order to achieve disproportionate gain. When stepping on the backs and heads of others to achieve personal gain a lot of animosity is produced. And along with that animosity is resentment and fragmentation. Currently the other enemies are bravado and arrogance because our current administration insists on beating its chest and hurling threats instead of using its great power with dignity, wisdom and class.

And so this greed, arrogance and antagonism has produced a lot of resentment against the US instead of admiration for its great culture, amazingly generous people and wonderful achievements and progress.

And instead of living by example, by running this country properly to demonstrate the democracy when properly applied simply works, our greedy leaders are liars and hypocrites. They do not serve the peoples interests, and they do not act in accordance with our own ideals in the world arena. They line the pockets of themselves, their friends and supporters, line the pockets of the big corporations like the oil companies and big industry, and they do this all at the expense of the common citizen. So, this worsens the problem and causes reasons for the resentful to rally against us and garnish more and more support as we are represented in dishonest, hypocritical, arrogant and dishonorable ways.

3. Why did our enemy attack us?
Firstly, let me say that I am disgusted and appalled that we were attacked. Even though I can understand the justifications for such an attack, I condemn those that attacked us and I condemn any person or group who targets innocent civilians as a goal. I believe that the purposeful targeting of innocents is a despicable act and there is no justification, no matter what one is trying to prove, to attack innocents on purpose. Collateral damage, which to me is also murder, is equally despicable. The loss of innocent life is inexcusable, no matter whether purposeful or inadvertent.

I believe that we were attacked as an act of helplessness and frustration at the unequal distribution of wealth and power in the world. I also believe we were attacked in such a way to rally support against us by trying to prove that they are David and we are Goliath. The result is still the taking of innocent life, and so there is nothing that can substantiate these actions in the realm of any real righteousness. And to those that think that they there is some type of honor in the taking of innocent lives, in the name of God no less, I say that these people are being deceived and the price for their actions is incalculable.

4. Where is the enemy?

Tough question. The enemy of greed is right in our lap. As long as our system precludes the electing of qualified individuals in favor of those that can simply afford to run a campaign, we will continue to limit our leadership to the highest bidder.

In terms of the so-called terrorists, they are all around us, and as long as greed reigns supreme in our government, our leaders will always favor lining their pockets to doing their actual job of "keeping us safe".

5. Should we have a dialogue with the enemy?

Another tough question. There will be no real peace without dialog. I can understand the concept of not negotiating with terror. I can understand not wanting to legitimize the groups that perpetrate terrorism. However, since we cannot physically wipe out every terrorist, at some point there will need to be some level of dialog, diplomacy and discussion or this conflict may simply never end.



Regards,
Andrew