Virginia Tech And Iraq: Symptoms Of The Same Illness
Published April 17, 2007
On the same day that a lone gunman killed thirty-two people at Virginia Tech, the country's President, George Bush, stood in the White House pleading with American politicians to give him more money for troops in Iraq. Mr. Bush released a statement deploring the violence and death that took place at the school, but he didn't make any connection between his war in Iraq and the deaths in West Virginia. Did anybody?
I doubt most people in North America would think of linking a seemingly random act of violence with an elected official seeking the means to escalate his country's participation in a war. Sixty years ago, maybe even only forty, they might have been right, and the circumstances would have had no bearing on each other. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.
We are living in a society that has become more and more willing to believe the only way to resolve conflict is through violence. There has always been that mentality to some extent, the "let them fight like men to resolve their differences" attitude that's been popularized through movies, popular fiction, and attitudes. Somehow, two people beating the crap out of each other was considered an adult means of solving disputes.
It does make for a more action-packed story to have the protagonists fight someone instead of sitting down, working out their differences, and coming up with a compromise solution, but that's not the "American Way" - to solve disputes outside, either with six guns on main street in the old west or in today's parking lots with fists, feet, knives, and whatever else you can lay your hands on.
When you're attacked you want to be able to defend yourself against further attacks, but there is a difference between self-defence and seeking to resolve the problem through war. Even calling something a "War On" implies the only way you can resolve an issue is through violence.
We've seen a "War On Drugs," a "War On Poverty," and a "War On Terror," but not only has there been little evidence of success in any area, we're a might too quick to turn everything into a military action without even implying there can be a peaceful way of accomplishing matters.
You may, in the case of fighting terrorism, have to use violence as part of your means to combat it, but why does it have to be the only angle of approach? Why not, while seeing if you can find them to fight the terrorists, do something practical and cancel debts to the countries that house the terrorists, support the domestic development of industry, and genuinely help them with their natural resources? Eliminate economic uncertainty and give people hope of a future and I bet they will be a lot less willing to strap dynamite to their chests as a walking bomb.
Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at Leap In The Dark and Epic India Magazine.
- Virginia Tech And Iraq: Symptoms Of The Same Illness
- Published: April 17, 2007
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Culture
- Filed Under: Culture: Crime and Court, Culture: History, Culture: Media, Culture: Society, Politics: Policy
- Writer: Richard Marcus
- Richard Marcus's BC Writer page
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Re: Virginia Tech And Iraq: Symptoms Of The Same Illness -- by Richard Marcus.
Does anybody out there in la La land understand that it was war, violence and sacrifice, that ultimately gave us the freedom to write here??
I just finished my second tour in Afghanistan.....and will probably do a third one..... and because of September 11th.........I don't mind a bit.
Compare this:
China Activist's Son Sentenced to Prison
BEIJING (AP) - The son of a prominent U.S.-based Chinese Muslim activist was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in prison on subversion charges, state media reported.
Ablikim Abdureyim was sentenced in Urumqi, capital of the Muslim Xinjiang region in China's far west, after confessing to charges of "instigating and engaging in secessionist activities," the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Abdureyim's mother, Rebiya Kadeer, once was one of China's most prominent businesswomen but became a critic of the communist government's treatment of Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims in Xinjiang.
She was detained in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of endangering state security but was allowed to leave for the United States in 2005.
Kadeer said she had not been informed by the Chinese government or the court about the sentence and denounced the trial process and Abdureyim's conviction. She said her son was innocent.
"They would not appoint a lawyer for him and didn't give him an opportunity to defend himself, and they held the hearing in secret," Kadeer said in a telephone interview from her home in Washington, D.C. "On what basis are they convicting my son?"
The Urumqi court convicted Abdureyim of spreading secessionist articles over the Internet, instigating the public against the government and writing articles that distorted China's human rights and ethnic policies, the report said.
He will also be denied political rights for three years, Xinhua said. Under Chinese law, political rights include free speech and the ability to gather or protest.
OUR FREEDOMS ARE PRECIOUS. IF WE DON'T RUN AND HIDE FROM A NECESSARY FIGHT, OUR FREEDOMS MIGHT BE PRESERVED.........AT LEAST FOR NOW. WE THE PEOPLE.........
Hey Baby, Give peace a chance! Can't we all get along? Love and Peace All it takes is love. Love will stop the violence. Just love Bush and it will be ok baby, just love! Stop the contributing to the rhetoric of war baby. Just love!
One can't see when a sand storm is at hand. Kinda makes me as a human being wish i had eyes like a camel who during a sand storm closes it's eyes and still finds it way. What has this world come to? We ask!
Colors and Flags!!!
Wow and we wonder why
They fail to see, and ears with which they fail to hear.
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VT is in Virginia, not West Virginia.