The Whores of War

Dear Mr. President,

Rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza into Israel are stupid and indefensible, as is all violence, but the Israeli retaliation for Hamas’s latest random rocket attacks with helicopter gunships, F-16 laser-guided missiles and bombs, and a naval bombardment on defenseless, densely packed civilians trapped in Gaza is morally repugnant. Last night, Israel targeted media centers where journalists and radio and TV crews work, calling them, “Hamas communications centers”; in reality, Israel is trying to stop reports of their violence from being seen or heard. (CBS, Fox News, Sky News and Al Jazeera are not exactly Hamas communication centers.) The New York Times reports, “President Obama condemned missile attacks by Palestinian fighters in Gaza and defended Israel’s right to protect itself.” This is not Israel’s right to protect itself, this is genocide against Gazans. There are root causes for Hamas’s rockets which politicians will not discuss: the ongoing blockade and embargo of food, medicines, building supplies and the necessities of life; the restrictions on travel; the administrative detentions, the denial of human rights and basic human dignity; the injustices of everyday life crowded into a defenseless shooting gallery that Israel invades at will and in which they murder with impunity. What about Gaza’s right to defend itself? Similarly, the root causes of 9/11 have never been discussed by politicians, much less corrected, and so the hatred and brutality will continue until someone of courage and conscience ends the cycle of injustice and violence. That man is not you, Mr. President. You have sided with the aggressor once again. To say “There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” is the ultimate hypocrisy, ignoring the thousands of Hellfire missiles rained down on Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya, the assassinations and drone strikes which have killed thousands of men, women and children. You are as responsible as Netanyahu for this latest violence; you are making the world less stable, guaranteeing generations of hatred at the injustice and inhumanity done to those on the receiving end of violence. The Nobel committee should strip you of that Peace Prize for you do not deserve it and never have; you are just another barbarian politician who masks evil with words of reason, who lies and dissembles, who wears the mask of peace but is in reality one of the Whores of War.