Occupation Nation

How did Americans become so disillusioned with world politics? When did killing innocent civilians, women, and children become ok? Whether or not a collective awakening will be enough to put an end to what is going into motion in the Middle East, taking steps to educate ourselves on the true nature of world events, though it certainly will not alleviate the blame, is a step toward being able to show the rest of the world that unjust wars are not the American way.

Occupation creates “terrorists”. Targeted assassinations create “terrorists”. Kidnapping and torturing citizens creates “terrorists”. Would you too be a “terrorist” if your local neighborhood was under lockdown by foreign military forces? No? That’s good but what if your neighbors started disappearing one by one never to be seen again? You’re still sitting there taking it? That’s really nice, violence certainly isn’t the answer. What if these occupying forces prevented power, water, and food from coming into any part of your neighborhood? You would no longer have your job and thus no way to provide for your family even if there was some way to get food or water. There are no public services so trash and sewage spills into your streets. The neighbor’s house on the other side of you just got bulldozed… with your neighbors still in it. The occupying forces start to build settlements in your neighborhood and they don’t compensate any of the land owners, instead they just take what they want with no questions asked. Are you at least at the point that you want to call a neighborhood meeting to start to discuss ways that you, the poor, weak, unarmed citizen, can stand up to these forces and begin to take your community back from these men in tanks, with guns, and unlimited military funding? It doesn’t seem like these two teams are stacked quite right, does it? Now imagine 60 years have gone by and that things have actually gotten worse. What kind of person will you have become? Maybe the kind of person that has no other way to defend yourself and your loved ones but to strap explosives around the only thing they haven't taken from you yet, the one thing that can still be considered yours. Maybe not.

Please understand these few points; the West has bred these people into becoming what they are. They are no different than you and I, just people forced into extraordinary circumstances just trying to survive the best way they know how. Islamic extremists are the exception not the rule. The media’s anti-Arab bias has grown immeasurably since September 11^th. The blood of Americans, British, and Israelis are not worth more than that of the Palestinian and Lebanese people. People are people. We all breathe, bleed, fight, cry, and die the same as everyone else on this lawless planet and it is time we stand up for our oppressed brothers and sisters not only in the Middle East but every corner of the globe. Everyone has the right to liberty and freedom in this life not just the ones with (the money and) the guns.