Violence v. What
One American's Dilemma

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
-Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from the Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963

With the disclosure three Americans have been Taliban, one taken prisoner-of-war by Northern Alliance fighters, the future of such men and women is today unclear. They are guilty of...what?

A case may be made that the Alliance del Norte has the only authority actually involved in their fate. However, one American, we are told today, is under American military control, to his obvious benefit. Media interviews with "friends of the family" or attributed to parents say, John Phillip Walker Lindh, aka John Walker, aka Abdul Hamid, is a 'really good boy,' a wounded youngster. (We are told, also, of his intention to fight any military or civilian court action.) He plainly has no idea who he is (the many-name thing as example of deeper malady maybe?) or whom he is at odds with (the entire frigging US government legal machine, headed by General John "Blood and Guts" Ashcroft). Already, the "only non-American aspects of the Presidential Order and Public Law, have backfired. But, like events that brought this on, nobody is thinking aloud. It remains a secret.

This episode reeks of the entire Muddle East situation. First, a War on Terrorism is a convenient political tool, but not a very intelligent campaign. It has, today, found an endorsement in tyranny; in the person of Ariel Sharon, who quoted "Our President" nearly word for word in preparing Israeli citizens for "a long war."  An online survey found 75% of respondents ready to evict Yassir Arafat and all Palestinians from their agreed upon areas. Our government has made clear that we are "Israel's best ally" without discussion in our Congress. It seems that such committment is required of the Advise and Concent aspects in the Constitution. But, such formalities are commonly being trashed in name of expedition. However, the actual results are a bit unclear. Certainly, the secrecy of the conflict may be hiding more than what first meets the eye. 

This righteousness device is certain to only bring the results that any Law of Karma demands; death and destruction manifesting death and destruction. This is the singularity; evil begets evil. No matter the righteousness involved, the manifestation of violence can only be more violence.

There is only one answer, and it is the most difficult to embrace. That is to love one another. It may be impossible, if we think in terms of forgiveness. But, we can love and not forgive; remembering may be the only peace found of events as horrible as those of September 11th (and since). We can formulate a foreign policy based on international "tough love." Governments may commit to defined agreement, and provide a forum through which grievance and alternative may be voiced. We collectively may love cautiously, and verify within agreed limits; and perhaps actually limit our own use of sky terror to known military targets. We can love bravery, and see it in an enemy facing certain destruction, through providing a righteous means for surrender. We can love a people, whose reality has been decades of war, by presenting an enforced peace; dutifully transcending into our proper time to leave. We can love our country and our freedom by differentiating the discrepancy between righteousness and mistaken radical action. We can closely watch our leadership for signs of such radicalism and give any discrepancy voice. We can care. And, soon, maybe, we can vote again and bemoan election results when they grow contrary to our ideals or celebrate when our ideals are upheld collectively. We can go on through our faith in each other, and allow that faith to transcend the past. When we do, we will enter the promise of our future together unafraid, terror free.

We can pray to whatever deity we chose; for all demand that we love one another. This is the premise that roots all faith; even a faith entirely selfish and ambitious. This is the failure of the al Quida believers, who seek a Muslim state based mistakenly on the ideology of confrontation and conflict. They must eventually embrace this simple idea. It is what differentiates the Christian from the Klu Klux Klan, the Muslim from the alQuida. It holds the only measure of righteousness and thereby is the only enduring concept. It is the tao of Humankind.