It’s high time that U.S. citizens stop asking rhetorical questions and start asking pointed questions that get us to the root causes of terrorism and other forms of violence. It is equally important that we stand firm on democratic principles and not change our views and attitudes based upon who is the victim and who is the perpetrator.
Last week, what can be described as two improvised explosive devices were detonated near the finish line of the nation’s oldest marathon. The Boston Marathon became the Boston Massacre. Three people were killed, including an 8-year-old boy, more than 250 were injured and a nation was traumatized. For the first time that I can remember, an entire city was put on lockdown until the suspects were killed and captured.
“How could this happen here?” is a dead end question to the acts of violence that are happening with more frequency and with more intensity. “Why does this happen?” will at least get us to looking at root causes. Then would come the difficult part – doing something about the conditions that nurture violence.
I suggest that Americans pull ourselves from the bowels of reality TV, from the drowning waters of excessive consumerism and other distractions to pay attention to our government’s foreign policies. Civilians in other countries are paying very close attention.
The U.S. military invaded Iraq under false pretenses. According to the Costs of War Project, nearly 200,000 Iraqis have died and the country’s infrastructure was decimated. The invasion has cost U.S. taxpayers about $2 trillion. Taking care of veterans from the Iraq War and rebuilding Iraq will cost additional billions. The war invigorated Islamic radicals and created fertile ground for new recruits who experienced first-hand the death and destruction caused by the U.S. military.
In 2009 President Obama promised to close down the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. It is still open, housing 166 men who have never been charged and therefore never had their day in court. Many of the detainees have been held at Gitmo for a decade despite Amnesty International documenting torture and abuse at the camp and a call by the United Nations to shut it down. About half of the men are engaged in a hunger strike and are strapped to chairs while Ensure is forced down feeding tubes through their noses.
U.S. drones are creating havoc. Just like Newtown where innocent children were killed and maimed, U.S. drones are doing the same thing in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen. Our sensibilities about these deaths seem to be tempered by the notion that drones are justified in the pursuit of terrorists. Some experts argue that the policy is creating more terrorists than the U.S. military can ever kill.
Now that the remaining suspect in the Boston bombing has been captured, the debate is growing over whether to treat him as an American citizen or an enemy combatant. Dzhokar Tsarnaev is reportedly being interrogated now without a lawyer present on the authority of the Public Safety exemption to Miranda rights.
The military order to take the teen alive to get answers about his deadly actions is understandable. No one seemed interested in talking to Christopher Dorner about why he spiraled out of control. Dorner was the former L.A. police officer who went on a deadly rampage and was killed by SWAT. Dorner quickly fell off the news radar. Could we have learned any useful information about how he came to a place of such desperation?
As the cumulative impact of violence continues to take its toll, we must demand the transparency the Obama administration promised. We must know what’s being done in our name in other countries where U.S. military and corporations are destroying the lives, culture and land of sovereign nations.
Where those acts are illegal, the American people must rise up to end them; where they are immoral, we must at least have an open and honest discussion about it. I this would go a long way toward turning off the spigot of violence.
