Abu Abdullah, right, a shop owner who lost two of his sons in Saturday's bombing of a Baghdad market, at the scene with a friend Sunday
Who among us will not listen to the words below because they are not an American's words? Who among us will not care about the words below because they are not an American's words? Who among us will do nothing--other than to politicize them--because the words below are not an American's words? Who among us wants to do anything about the words below spoken by a citizen of the country we broke but will not pay for per the "pottery barn rules."? You? Me? Him? Goddamn us all if the answer is even one 'not me.' This was done in our name. Yet we cannot fix it without the help of a world community that trusts us even less than they care about the man who spoke the words below because to do otherwise is to align with a foreign policy mistake as wrong as history has or ever will note.
If we are not to follow too quickly into the second-rate abyss of history as did the many singular superpowers that came before us--in varying degrees of success and longevity: Egypt, Mesopotamia, Indus, Greece, Rome, Mongols, Saracen, Holy Roman, Spanish, French, English, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, etc., etc., (the great civilizations of central and South America never had a horse in this particular race) then we must do what so many of them could not do. We must earnestly, honestly, humbly (knowing we carry the biggest stick), quietly--with ears open and our big ethnocentric American mouths shut tight--listen to what other folks care about, not just assuming that they must care about the same things we do because we are the ascendant culture of the moment (along with China, of course, the one ancient civilization still around culturally, linguistically, historically intact, and has much to say, if only it would).
As the newest, the as yet most short-lived, and arguably the luckiest and richest 'superpower' civilization of them all, we have less cultural baggage to keep us arrogantly, self-righteously nailed to the past. We can change paths, we can admit mistakes; we are strong enough to know that the mistakes of a few cannot bring down the whole of us. But this can only happen when we the people truly wish it to happen. We can do it, though; we have done it before and survived all the stronger for it.
The words are from The New York Times; read the excerpt and then please click through.
Mr. Abdul Jabbar said he rushed to collapsed buildings trying to help the wounded, but found mainly hands, skulls and other body parts.
"The government is supposed to protect us, but they are not doing their job," he said. "I watch the TV and see the announcements on the imminent implementation of the security plan. Where is it, for God's sake?"
"I wish they would attack us with a nuclear bomb and kill us all," he added, "so we will rest and anybody who wants the oil -- which is the core of the problem -- can come and get it. We can not live this way anymore. We are dying slowly every day."
