"Who are the terrorists? Damn Israel. Damn America.
Damn the Arab states"
These are the curses Lebanese civilians invoke, while
Britons and Americans cower in fear after their governments, which lied them
into war in Iraq, assure them they have foiled a terrorist plot at Heathrow,
which, if true, is only the consequences of their lies.
Fear. That is the result of American foreign policy -- and
its intent.
"It's not important that they hate us; it is important
that they fear us," so spoke the foreign policy pundits of the Roman
Empire.
But fear has to be instilled through carnage -- and in
Lebanon, where death stalks women, children, and old people, the carnage is failing
to instill fear. It breeds resistance. Look
at the faces and hear the voices of the people of Lebanon -- and learn how
people find the courage in despair to stand up to fear.
Will they forgive us? That is the fear we should learn to
confront -- not this burlesque of terror in the airports, purveyed by the very
murderers who pretend to protect us. We have nothing to gain by standing behind
our governments that wage criminal wars in our name and gain us the hatred of
our brothers and sisters in the world.
We are all Lebanese, all Iraqis, all Palestinians, all
Afghans -- the bombs that kill them will kill us. There are no
"Islamo-fascists," in the sense Bush intends. Fascism is the
corporate state married to militarism. A "fascist" is not just a
"bad guy" or a "bad Muslim."
If anything, a fascist is a "Bushist" -- a
follower of a false prophet, an enemy of humanity, who stands for war, social
injustice and terror, and who says his God tells him that killing people to rob
them of their lands and resources amounts to exporting democracy.
Look to standing up to fascism at home -- it does not need
an exotic face. If we oppose Bush and the interests that support him, we will
hear no more of this "terror" that is the deadly manure of its
poisonous growth -- the seething swamp of corruption and infinite war that is
shedding the blood of innocents and killing our conscience.
Luciana
Bohne teaches film and literature at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She
can be reached at lbohne@edinboro.edu.