America Fights
                By Jesse Smith

	Sometimes I think that if I hear the date "September
eleventh" one more time, I'm going to scream. People here, there
and everywhere are so caught up in this that it makes me sick.
It was about a month ago that New York city was attacked by
planes from the sky. For a month the media, the United States
and the charities of the world have dragged us through the mud.
Well, I guess it's time I threw my own opinion into the mess.

	First off, I'm writing this for the ironic reason of
down-playing the tragedy. My apologies to the families who have
lost. My apologies to everyone involved in this horrible mess.
I cannot imagine the sense of loss and horror that the families,
in their sadness, must feel. That said, this has gone from a sad
moment to a circus.
	
	Let me put this all in prospective. The last I heard, there
were about 4,000 people known to be killed in the destruction.
That is a lot of people. However, let's compare that to the
estimated 40,000 children who die of starvation every day. Most
of those children don't live in America. Do they? That's just
the children and that's just from hunger. How many companies
represent them? Who's government goes to war for them? Who
sends those kids stuffed toys? Not that you can eat a stuffed
animal. It sure as heck can't replace a daddy either.

	On a similar note, if this had happened in any country
NOT in the G-7 group, would any of us really care that much? Heck,
would we even hear about it? No. If we did we'd think "That's
too bad," and go about our lives. End of story. Since it happened
in the world's current only super-power, we know about it. In
fact, now the whole world knows about it.

	Americans have been itching for about half a year now
to attack the middle east in the worst way. If you will recall
back, it was this previous spring that the western world cried in
outrage over a woman being beaten to death for prostitution.
I don't remember how many times I heard, "We should send
in the troops. Bomb all the bastards." Forget that women are
beaten every day and we don't care. Now that the US of A has
a bloody nose, I hear people saying "We can't bomb those innocent
people. What did they do?" Well, make up your minds! Not that
we have much brain power left, what with the mass media leading
us around by the nose. It is my opinion that we ask the countries
in question to change how they treat their women and not bomb
the heck out of them for the actions of a few men.

	"The big BL must be brought to justice." Sure, if you
have proof that he was involved. Has anyone seen any proof?
I sure haven't heard any. It happened so fast. One day everyone
was crying over dead, the next they wanted blood. America
has had its face slapped and they want to hit back. They needed
a target in the worst possible way. Well, they picked one, guilty
or not, and now they're going after him. What that has to do with
attacking Afghanistan, I don't know. I mean, the man is on the news
all the time now. If you can get close enough to shoot him with a
camera, you can also shoot him with a gun. Or drop a small bomb
on his head. This attack has nothing to do with killing him. It
is an excuse for attacking the Afghans. It is also a nice was
of justifying the American government giving its military five
BILLION dollars. Funny that it happened within days of the
attack. Did it go into helping families? Or feeding the homeless
of America? No it did not. It went into making guns and bombs and
buying fuel. That doesn't sound like a good way of dealing with
the situation to me.

	Next, we hear all of this talk about America fighting
terrorists. Wrong! Americans (and a number of Canadians) are
guilty of becoming terrorists. People who have come to our two
countries in peace, hoping to settle down with their families
are being attacked. Their small businesses are losing money
because people no longer shop there. They are being arrested by
the dozens because they look different. They look like "them".
This is the most stupid, anti-freedom thing I have heard
of happening in Canada. It sounds like WE are becoming the
terrorists. Heck, we're giving the other terrorists a break and
attacking our own people.

	Tonight was the last straw though. I went on-line and
while chatting, saw a guy claim to be from Afghanistan. Quickly
a number of people (all claiming to be American) started giving
him heck. Threats we virtually yelled at the poor man. One
American asked "Do they really have the Internet there?" Come
on people! If you are going to claim that these people are evil
and must be punished, you should at least know SOMETHING about
them. Next, this man obviously wasn't out there killing babies
or beating women. He was on-line looking to strike up pleasant
conversation. Now, thanks to our ignorance and paranoia, he
might be at the bottom of a bomb crater.

	Looking to escape that scene, I turned on the TV. Within
five seconds, I saw the sign "America Fights Back" and heard
the words "Bombs dropped on Afghanistan." Damn, I thought. They
really are crazy enough to kill innocent people for their pride.
America's bubble of perceived safety has been popped and they are
mad. "America Fights Back" is, of course, a joke. America was
attacked by a handful of terrorist, not by the nation of
Afghanistan. The tittle should have read "America Fights". The
USA is attacking a nation that can't really fight back because
they need a scape goat.

	The economy's problems have been blamed on the attacks
as well. I'd like to point out that the economy was in trouble
long before September eleventh. In fact, by that time it had
already hit bottom and was recovering, according to a number
of analysts. However, the economy and jobs are a good front
to push five BILLION dollars into the market. All for the
military to spend. Nothing ever speeds up an economy like a war.
It looks like we are going to recover nicely. Where was that
cool five billion before the attacks? Why wasn't it there
when the economy was taking hits last spring? I'd like to know.

	At the start of this article I apologized to the
American families who had experienced loss. I now apologize to
the middle-eastern-Americans and Canadians that have to put up
with being abused. It is not fair that you take the fall for
this just because you look differently or speak differently than
the majority. Please forgive us.