I just got around to viewing Fahrenheit 9/11 a few days ago. I know, I�m way behind the curve on this, but I�m not one who runs out to view the latest message as soon as it hits the bricks. Also, I am not a watcher of television, or one who has an overwhelming desire to spend 10 bucks to sit in a movie theater just because something is labeled as the next �blockbuster.�

My wife is the television viewer in the house and since I sit and read in the same room, occasionally I hear some peripheral noise or a promo for an upcoming show. That�s how I came to know that the Sundance Channel was showing Moore�s film and that�s how I came to watch it.

Now I have read all of the various comments and raves about the film and I do have my own thoughts about it, but I won�t subject you too most of those. Suffice to say though, like Moore�s earlier works it did get the point across � and it was a griping documentary.

For me though, it was the shots of the death and destruction in Iraq, along with the comments from the young men and women placed in harm�s way in Bush�s war, that were the most gut wrenching aspect of the entire film for me. That is where the title for this piece comes from; a quote from a young soldier. The entire quote was, �a part of your soul is destroyed when you kill someone.� After the lies of all the �welcoming us with open arms� and �strewing rose petals at out feet� wore off and the reality of death reared its ugly head, the young men and women sent to Iraq were quite candid in their comments regarding Bush�s folly.

Moore�s film should be a classic, it should be shown on the streets of Flint, Michigan, as well as the other mean streets of urban Amerika, wherever military recruiters show up to enlist young men and women for the Amerikan war machine. It should also be shown in every classroom in this militaristic country in which we live.

One has to wonder if the Christian war criminals running this country have a belief in the soul. One also has to wonder if these same practitioners of genocide subscribe to the words of Matthew in the New Testament: �For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?� But then, of course, they don�t subscribe to that particular wisdom of Matthew�s.

Bush and Company are certainly attempting to gain the whole world, along with their puppet masters in Israel; they are practicing genocide on an unprecedented scale. The wholesale slaughter of Arab men, women and children causes all of us to have our souls destroyed, and we are all the worse for it.

The Amerikan and Israeli politicians are war criminals. The Amerikan and Israeli politicians should be tried and executed for their blatant crimes against humanity. The Amerikan and Israeli people-by their damnable complicity in these crimes-should be tried as co-conspirators. When the peoples of a nation, by virtue of their gross apathy, allow genocide in their name, they are equally as guilty. We are all guilty; we have all allowed our souls to be destroyed.

For the profit of gaining the whole world, we have lost our humanity. For the sake of maintaining a false image of being the toughest kid on the block, we have lost our souls. For propping up a rapacious, murderous oligarchy, we are not worthy to be called God�s children. Every murdered Arab is our mother, father, daughter and son. Every artillery piece raining down on innocent peoples anywhere in the world carries our imprimatur just as if we signed our name to it.

We are the killers of the Universe, in more ways than one. We consent to murder by turning our backs on humanity and letting the murderous Bush cabal commit genocide in our name. We have lost our souls and become the monsters of the world. Out of sight, out of mind as we flip the channel to the next reality show, all the better to numb our senses to the suffering of the innocents. Have you no shame, Amerika? Have you become so accustomed to the death and destruction committed in your name that it becomes nothing more than a cheap thrill, another reality show?

We are not powerless people, remember that all empires crumble under the weight of their own inner corruption, and this empire is most corrupt. Big government, big business and big oil may have made rendered us powerless for the moment, but that is not how it needs be for the long term. It is time to take back the power, it is past time to bring to trial and execute the criminals who murder in our name. Do we have the guts? Do we have what it takes to light a candle in the darkness and fan it into a flame, a conflagration large enough to bring down the empire?