Little Boys as Hostages

Posted on March 11, 2003 in Citizenship Crosstalk Human Rights Justice

“Children are not tools of war.” — Raye of By Sand and Sea

Raye’s been particularly alert to stories about US involvement in torture. A recent item about the United States holding the school age sons (ages seven and nine) of a suspected terrorist rankled me:

This is completely against our principles of justice! The founding fathers must be rolling on their graves and ready to rear out to launch a new revolution against George III. We have always refused to involve the children of the accused and the guilty! The Starrish Inquisition, however, set a nasty precedent when they dragged in Monica Lewinsky’s mother in order to get Monica to talk.

I don’t spit on the flag, but I will spit on pictures of Bush and Ashcroft. They are against the nation and her ideals. They must be removed and it’s time to start telling other people in the world to start treating us like they treated South Africa when apartheid reigned there: disinvest. Refuse to travel here. Refuse to buy American until a certain decisive number of Americans gets the hint and throws the power elite out of power once and for all.

The next nonviolent revolution is in 2004. Make your vote count and make sure that there are exit polls to monitor the activities of the Bush Junta.

It’s time to apply Amnesty International principles here. Bush and his cronies must be held accountable. There are federal laws against denying citizens their civil rights. We must strive to put in a duly elected administration that will take steps to assure that this will not happen again in the lifetime of those being born to these troubled times. Yes, we must not only prevent them from holding political office, but we must not hesitate to take from them the ill-got and ill-used wealth they have used to destroy American principles of justice and fair play. They cannot be allowed this power again. Our educational system must teach and teach again that torture and hostage-taking is wrong, always.

We lose our moral high ground against terrorism when the State itself is a terrorist. It’s time to take a hard line against these criminals — as we should have done in 2000.

The original article in the Washington Times.

We wouldn’t be here if more people like me had acted to deny Bush and Ashcroft their blank checks.