by Amy Zidell
In honor of past, present, and future Veterans - brave men and women 11.11.02
Ah the prospects of war. If you ask me, it's about time. This piece is in protest to the 'peace' protesters. Consider this a small rally of support for G.W. and his taking care of business - a defense rally. I suppose the election results reflect a more resounding rally of sorts. I hope the United States does whatever it can do to help make the world a safer more peaceful place by disarming, dethroning, and dismantling Saddam and others like him. The United States sat on the sidelines while Hitler terrorized Europe and that was wrong. How many millions of people could have been spared had the U.S. engaged sooner? We'll never know. As unimaginable as it may seem, Saddam is likely more of a threat to more people and more ways of life than Hitler ever contemplated. However, so called peace protestors would have us repeat a shameful history and sit on the sidelines again.
Donned in a hazmat suit, it was as I was preparing fresh ground beef patties for the freezer in Ziploc bags, that an ironic perspective struck me. Let's assume the majority of so-called peace activists don't vote Republican, and are vegetarian, or at minimum organic food consumers. (It's a broad brush I agree, but close enough.) These people's daily lives contain more concern about everyday consumable and livable items such as food, water, and domestic materials than the average person fathoms in a life time. Mind you, the average person doesn't need to be a vegetarian or even be concerned with terrorist attacks to be inundated with concerns about everyday items. Take the ground beef. There's potential E-coli. Not only does every burger, or ground beef ingredient based food product have to be cooked well-done to avoid potential illness and possible death, but you must also be concerned about safe food handling procedures. You touch the raw meat; you touch a surface in your kitchen. Now that surface could be contaminated and now must be decontaminated.
As a tangent I always wonder when there's a food recall, why isn't the meat tested before it leaves the plant? Wouldn't that make so much more sense?
Anyway, you've got raw meat concerns, you're probably using a water filters, bottled water, or some other measure to protect against the horrors of tap water, and no doubt there's more take your pick: e-mail viruses, cell phone radiation, ozone holes, etc. You likely drive a car with enhanced safety devices in existence partly due to technology and partly to compensate for more flimsy car shells. Let's not forget air filters electrostatic and others. Now let's introduce an organic food eater and/or vegetarian. E-coli is now joined with avid concern about pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics, not to mention the whole question moral or otherwise about animal protein consumption. It gets more complicated: Eggs okay? Organic dairy yes? Conventional dairy no? Let's not forget about our home environment. Is it Feng Shuied or not? It's enough to make a dyed in the wool Republican's head spin, let alone someone not weighed down in as much saturated fat.
Maybe it's a simple a law of physics and the human brain can only worry about so much until it is rendered useless. Perhaps this is why a hyper liberal crowd seems unable to perceive the real dangers that someone like Saddam Hussein presents. Finding an aluminum free body deodorant just isn't as important as international thugs getting funds and deadly weapons from Saddam and other terrorism backers. There's no real argument against that. The fact is that there are bad people in the world. Evil people. Saddam and Bin Laden are bad guys. They're criminals, and criminals break the law; that's what they do. That's a big part of what makes them criminals. Action against Saddam and other terrorists or terror sponsoring counties is just, needed, and, on many levels, simply a matter of enforcing existing law. If we don't go after such bad people and/or countries then the matter of whether or not a cow got an antibiotic when it was sick is going to be the least of anyone's concern. Bio terrorism, nuclear attacks, and other acts of violence -- these are major fish to fry even if you are a vegetarian. And all that organic produce may not be so safe to eat if any one of these types of attacks is inflicted on our country or our allies. Feng Shui balance is going to be hard to find amongst bomb blasted rubble. Optimistically, we'll still be around to worry about such trivia.
Why does it fall on the U.S. and it's freedom loving allies to address this threat? We're a major target of the violence. Freedom and democracy flies in the face of repressive regimes. Unless it's a second or third trophy wife, women aren't relegated to mere chattel in the Western world and that really bugs the evil empire constituents. This hatred of freedom and women as humans may all just be a smoke screen. These evil whack jobs are intolerant of our tolerance and we're not as tolerant as many would like us to be. We're also the biggest juiciest target. We're the big fish. The trophy. Hmmm, you're an evil, crazed, megalomaniacal, egomaniac, do you conquer a small dusty portion of the earth or go after the largest, shiniest part if not the entire world?
The reason that the U.S. may rightly unilaterally deal with the situation is because we can. Hopefully, our steadfast allies will see to it that the U.S. won't have to go it alone. Everyone else, protestors and all, can shiver behind U.S. and Allied coattails complaining we shouldn't, 'interfere,' while breathing a sigh of relief that we are intervening.
[Post script: My apologies to any vegetarian Republicans, or Democratic or Green party meat eaters. ]
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