Bodhisattva

Well, folks, the war in Iraq is underway. It seems like war is the only thing on anybody's minds right now. If you don't talk about the war, you're seen as irrelevant. So I'd better talk about the damned war.

For starters, I do not agree that the conflict in Iraq is the only thing worth discussing. Since I estimate a very small number of readers of this page are Iraqis or military people stationed in the Middle East, there are certainly far more relevant things in all of our lives. We'll all be affected by events in Iraq to some extent. But it won't be that great. This is not the beginning of World War III. Jesus is not about to return from the sky.

Am I saying that just because they're thousands of miles away we should not care about those poor innocent Iraqi children who our American fighters are about to blast out of existence? Certainly not. But I am questioning whether we really do care about them at all. I hear a lot of people making a lot of noise about the horrors of war, but I have to wonder if they really give a shit about the horrors of war. I have to wonder very seriously how many of those who cry out against the attack really have the guts to do what it takes to actually destroy war completely once and for all.

(By the way, don't even get me started on the degenerates who actually openly revel in childish patriotism, who fly flags and feel the delicious rush of being a true red-blooded American -- or Englishman, or Iraqi or whatever god-awful imbecility you want to align yourself with -- whenever a bomb knocks down some factory or office building in a foreign land. Those psychopaths are beyond help and thank God not too many of them read this website.)

A decade or so ago, the last time America attacked Iraq, there was hardly a peep of protest. Oh a few whiny liberal peaceniks (like me, for example) got their knickers in a twist about it. But the vast majority thought it was a terrific adventure. Operation Desert Storm! Cool! Just like a video game! Now it seems like everyone's a war protester. I feel like it's 1968 or something whenever I step outside. The difference now is everyone's afraid that now that America has attacked Iraq there's going to be more terrorism. It's not those poor Iraqi children we're all worried about, it's ourselves. Let's at least be honest there. But do terrorists really need concrete reasons for what they do? What exactly were those brain dead blockheads responding to on September 11th?

Look. I do not like George W. Bush. I do not like the American Military Industrial Complex. I am not a patriot. And yet I am not out there protesting the war on Iraq. I won't go so far as to say I support it. War is bad. OK? No two ways about it. If there is ever an alternative it has to be pursued. But wars happen. We haven't matured enough as a species to be free from war.

And that is what I hate. The real tragedy of war is the fact that people all over the world are so utterly stupid that it still has to happen sometimes. And it is the very attitudes held even by those who cry out for peace that make this so. Both the war-mongers and the peaceniks don't have the slightest clue what the real situation is. None of them have the courage to look deeply into themselves, to find the source of war itself and to rip it right out of their very own guts. Because that is more difficult than marching with picket signs or firing guns and dropping bombs. It's far more repulsive to us to really face up to who and what we really are than it is to face the prospect of fires and bombs and blood and misery. We would gladly choose war any day of the week over that. Quite literally. I say this without reservation and 5,000 years of recorded history backs me up. And that is the real tragedy. That's what makes me cry. You can get all self righteous and pretend that there's a big difference between the hatred you feel for George W. Bush and Colin Powell and the hatred they feel for Sadaam Hussein. But is there? You need to find out. You really, really do.

War will not end until we can actually face ourselves without flinching, without turning away, until we can really find the true source of war. All other solutions are like sticking Band Aids® on a fatal bullet wound. The best you can hope for is to buy yourself a few more seconds of life in searing agony. It takes real courage to go right to the very source and root it out of yourself. Because it's there in you, and I do mean you, pal. You are the cause of the war in Iraq. You right there reading this piece and thinking how wonderful you are for being all concerned over the tragic bombing of those poor suffering innocent people. You are causing this misery.

We love those banners running over the top of CNN News, "America Goes to War" or whatever cheezy slogan they're using (I don't get CNN and I'm not about to subscribe). Whether we're for the war or against it, we lap it up like hungry dogs. Our eyes are glued to TV reports and newspaper stories that never tell us anything worth knowing. Whether we're protesting the war or cheering on our valiant soldiers it all makes us feel so alive, so very present, like we're finally part of something big. Maybe a war is the only thing terrible enough to pierce through the numb exterior we've built up to shield ourselves from ever actually participating in our own lives. And let's not forget about fear. Everybody loves a good scare and war is one of the best. Don't kid yourself, you just love that chill you get up your spine every time some terrorist threatens reprisals. It's all so cool and scary these days!

We love the pageant and the spectacle and the drama of it all. We love having those poor, sad barefoot Iraqi children to pity and feel superior to. We love having George W. Bush to hate, to be against, to define ourselves by our staunch opposition to war and violence -- or our unwavering patriotism. Having a war to be against makes us feel so self-righteous and superior and so inflates our own egos. And that's what it's really all about, isn't it? Our own self-important, self-existent, selfish little Self. And we'd never, ever dream of giving that up no matter how many little kids get burnt alive for the cause.

As long as you fail to see that the sick, twisted, miserable little toad who actually loves war and wants to perpetuate it forever and ever is you (and me, by the way, if you must know), there is no hope at all for humankind.

Why do I even bother talking at all?


-Brad Warner

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