Woody's Commentary

I was flying from Dublin to LA, directly over a city called Galdthab, Greenland (which translates to "God's home") when the pilot came over the intercom with the news that we would be returning to Dublin and then explained why. The plane was silent. It was September 11th and I knew instantly that life would never be the same for America. It was the first opportunity for modern Americans to experience the reality of war on our soil, and that is exactly what all of us experienced together, the cold, brutal, unflinching, horror of war.

And now a fear has crept into our collective conscience. The events of September 11th coupled with the anthrax valentines have literally shaken many of us to the core and friends of mine who are giants have been toppled. I was depressed for a while but bounced back by cutting myself off from the endless torrent of bad and worse news.

Assurance that bin Laden was the culprit came from the mother country and particularly from G.W.'s brother-in-arms across the bay, Tony Blair. I was surprised at first until I read that their information was provided by the U.S. Our government is clever and so as not to appear to be overeager warmongers they had the (as yet undisclosed) proof come from Tony the Tory. Always interesting to watch our leaders at work.

I suppose bin Laden was responsible, though we have many enemies. We have become the world's biggest bully and use our military might to support our corporate agenda. What is the common thread that runs through bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Libya's Gaddafi, Panama's Noriega, the Philippine's Marcos, and countless other fascist barbarians? All of them were CIA trained, financed with our tax dollars and supported by our government until it was appropriate to turn on them.

Our government always uses the key, emotionally charged words, "freedom", "democracy" and 'peace" as reasons for engaging our considerable military might. But beneath the superficial agenda we have the real agenda, "money" and every direction our foreign policy takes us we have serious corporate interests. If saving lives or protecting innocent people were really our government's concern, why would we not have moved more quickly to stop the Serbs in Bosnia or to stop the genocide in Rwanda?

Now we are bombing the people of Afghanistan who are unfortunate enough to sit in an area that is home to the most plentiful oil reserves in the world and extremely strategic to the "Seven Sisters". History is repeating itself as these oil interests had an oil interested President Bush fight their last oil war there only a decade ago.

I lost a friend on September 11th and have talked to many others who share this loss and who feel rightly that the perpetrator of this terrible act should be brought to justice. But is our quarrel with the people of Afghanistan? No. Certainly the Taliban sponsors and protects bin Laden and other terrorists but our leaders knew that when they gave them 43 million dollars in May to fight the war on non-corporate drugs.

Part of my brain hesitates to take a tangent here but let's face it, the war on drugs is linked to the war in Afghanistan. Both are unjust wars with many innocent victims but the war on drugs is focused mostly on marijuana and it's nonpsychoactive cousin, the industrial hemp plant. As you know I am an outspoken supporter of this crop that used to be our nations number one cash crop and can make clothing, paper, fuel, construction material etc. Industrial hemp is not about getting high (I tried in leaner times), it is about sustainability and getting off the dinosaur tit, halting the destruction of the world's forests, discouraging pesticide use and supporting the farmers of this country. In short, it is about a return to the natural.

We have been warned repeatedly that this will be a costly and protracted war. In the end, we won't be one step closer to bringing bin Laden to justice and in fact he will gain more support from Muslims around the world, just as Sadam Hussein now experiences more support in Iraq, (where we left 400,000 dead and where we continued bombing until September 11th) and just as George W. experiences 92% approval here since we were attacked.

Already there are many civilian casualties in Afghanistan as our billion-dollar warplanes nightly rain terror from their skies. But I wonder, as the count of innocent dead there reaches and surpasses five thousand, how can we wave our flags, pump our fists in the air and not see that our eye for an eye philosophy is blinding our conscience, empowering the guilty and killing the innocent. I love the people of this country but am deeply ashamed of the actions of our government.

I am impressed with how our country can rally round the flag when we are attacked but imagine all of us uniting in a push toward independence and sustainability. It is my hope, as innocent Afghani people experience the horror of war, that we come to see our personal responsibility in getting off the grid and in making daily choices that support a natural, sustainable lifestyle. Whether it means buying solar panels, an electric car, or non-wood paper there are many ways to lay down our consumer dollars consciously rather than feeding the corporate beast. Our government is not looking after our best interests or those of our planet. It's up to us, everyday.

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