America's new war is a racket
By Shariq Torres
Student Columnist

Former General Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps said, “War is a racket; possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious ... Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. Nations acquire additional territory (which is promptly exploited by the few for their own benefit), and the general public shoulders the bill – a bill that renders a horrible accounting of newly placed gravestones, mangled bodies, shattered minds, broken hearts and homes, economic instability and back-breaking taxation of the many for generations and generations.”

As I’m writing this, the time is 9:30 a.m.

Bombs are exploding in Afghanistan, and people are running for their lives. Land mines – hundreds of them – are scattered throughout the countryside, so that even the simple task of running away becomes a Herculean effort. President George W. Bush has said this war is not against the Afghan people but against the Taliban government, and to show his support for the civilians, he dropped 37,000 meals of bread and fruit for a population of 7 million to share.

Ugh, the situation is tense and requires a new level of understanding of the government and its policies. People must look behind the waving flag and get to the pure essence of what our leaders are proposing. What are the major implications of aligning U.S. forces with the Northern Alliance, a hodgepodge group of fighters whose only common goal is to overthrow the Taliban? What will be the results of the United States launching an attack on Afghanistan from another Arab country? Why were the CIA and the FBI blaming America’s “free and open society” for the attacks on the Trade Centers? Does that mean that a totalitarian and closed society would prevent future terrorist attacks?

But asking those kinds of questions right now are un-American, and anyone who does not throw himself or herself into the war drive is accused of naivete … or worse, sympathizing with the terrorists.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were horrendous. Innocent men and women were slaughtered because a group of fanatics wanted to further a political goal. As horrible as the attacks were, I can’t bring myself to condone the slaughter of innocent Afghans to further another goal – retrieving Osama bin Laden.

An emerging mountain of evidence proves the United States has been targeting civilians. Recently, the British newspaper The Telegraph printed a list of civilian casualties that have been confirmed by both Taliban and non-Taliban sources. This is only a partial list:

On Oct. 9th, the office of a U.N.-backed de-mining agency in Kabul is bombed. Two days later, 160 people are killed when U.S. bombs rain on Kadam, a mountain village near Jalalabad. While the Red Cross is helping raise money for the victims of the WTC attacks, the United States hits Red Cross warehouses in Afghanistan, destroying supplies and killing at least one worker. Red Cross warehouses were again hit on Oct. 26th, destroying food and supplies meant for widows and children.

Like I said before, the situation is more complex than the government leads us to believe. What do Afghans think about Bush’s claim that the war is not against them when they see the destruction that U.S. bombs have wrought? What effect will this bombing have the next generation of Afghans? Are we setting the circumstances for another bin Laden? Conservative stalwart Pat Buchanan believes that the bombing will increase the likelihoood of more terrorist attacks on the United States and feels it should be stopped immediately – a weird stance for a former Nixon speechwriter to take.

I suspect that the United States has gained the reputation of a crazed vigilante around the world instead of the pillar of justice and integrity that Americans pride themselves as. What does this mean for our citizens?

But more importantly – with the world’s only superpower acting out its Rambo-tendencies – will peace ever reign?