Ouch

My bruised arm doesn't actually hurt quite as much today as it did before, but it's developed a gigantic purplish-grey and greenish-yellow blotch four inches in diameter - the kind of thing that drives abused people to wear long sleeves all the time to avoid uncomfortable questions. Trouble is, it's been a hundred degrees here lately so I don't think I'm up for long sleeves tomorrow. I guess I'll be quite the conversation piece.

I didn't quite finish my letter tonight, but it's pulling together nicely, so it won't take me long to finish once I get some sleep and am awake enough to concentrate on it again.

Alternative Methods of Murdering Innocent People

There's nothing like reading outdated news reports to give one a sense of perspective. At a time when the U.S. government is so busy congratulating itself for having dropped food on Afghanistan along with the bombs, the article "'Smart' Sanctions on Afghanistan: The Real Target is Peace, as Afghans Suffer" by Dr. James Ingalls, from Z Magazine, March 2001 (reprinted on the website of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), is a definite must-read. It has lots to say about just how eager the U.S. government was to starve innocent Afghan civilians way back last March, when it imposed economic sanctions against Afghanistan with the foolish idea that this would be of any use in pressuring the Taliban to turn over Osama bin Laden. The article also includes this brief, well-written summary of the bloodthirsty bent of U.S. foreign policy in general over the past half century:

The US government has shown in the past that it is not above letting innocent civilians suffer to make a point. In Iraq, sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in 1990 are "the most comprehensive, total sanctions that have ever been imposed." Since then, it is estimated that over 1 million people have died as a direct result, because of the lack of proper nourishment, health care, and sanitation. Most of the deaths are of children. A 1999 UNICEF study found that children under five are dying at over twice the rate they were 10 years ago. While most of the world condemns this policy, and two UN Coordinators for Iraq in a row have resigned, it is maintained by the US and Britain, who as Permanent Members have veto power over all new resolutions of the Security Council. When asked in 1996 about the deliberate harm inflicted upon innocent Iraqis, then-Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright said, "we think the price is worth it."

Another example is Cuba, where unilateral sanctions by the US have been in place for over 40 years, and are still being intensified. In 1997, the American Association for World Health attributed "malnutrition, poor water quality, the denial of access to medical equipment" to the sanctions, calling them "the deliberate blockading of the Cuban population's access to food and medicine." A Harvard professor wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, "the Cuban and Iraqi instances make it abundantly clear that economic sanctions are, at their core, a war against public health."(6)

Sanctions are the weapon of choice for the United States. Between 1945 and 1993, of 116 cases of sanctions used, 80% were initiated by the US alone. (Mark Sommers, "Sanctions are Becoming 'Weapon of Choice'," Christian Science Monitor, 3 August 1993) The countries sanctioned unilaterally by the US represent over 40% of the world's population.

Public Opinion Polls from Vote.com

I'm quoting only the minority opinion's percentage in all of the polls below . . . you can calculate the majority opinion's percentage by subtracting the minority percentage from 100%.

6% do not "support the U.S. attacks on targets in Afghanistan" that occurred yesterday
9% say Congress should not "declare war on terrorists and the countries that harbor them"
10% say the U.S. should "strike only those responsible for the attacks" rather than "all nations that sponsor terrorism"
12% say the U.S. should not "place 'air marshals' on all flights"
12% say the U.S.'s military response should not "include the use of ground troops"
13% say Tom Brokaw is "right not to wear American flag pins or ribbons on the air"
17% do not want to "allow U.S. authorities to indefinitely detain legal aliens suspected of having ties to terrorist groups"
17% do not want to "allow pilots to carry handguns"
17% say the military should not "put the lives of innocent civilians abroad at risk"
22% say the U.S. "should not attack Iraq"
23% say America "should not attack Afghanistan"
27% say America does not "need a national I.D. card system"
31% say the "new anti-terrorism laws should expire in two years"
32% say the U.S. should not "expand The Justice Department's power to wiretap telephones, conduct searches and seize assets"
32% say the "Politically Incorrect" show "should not be cancelled" [read: censored!] due to Bill Maher "calling past US action 'cowardly'"
35% say constitutional rights are being trampled in the name of patriotism
36% oppose a constitutional amendment banning flag-burning

My observations:

• Much larger minorities of people seem to oppose infringement upon Americans' right to privacy and freedom of speech than oppose infringement upon Afghanis' right to not be mass murdered (boy, talk about nationalistic prejudice . . .)
• Slightly more people are eager to attack Iraq than are eager to attack Afghanistan (um . . . are we into completely random bloodthirstiness these days? Do Americans not only not understand the difference between "Afghan civilians" and "Taliban terrorists," but also not even understand the difference between "Afghanistan" and "Iraq" as located on a map?)
• Although 23% of respondents had answered "no" to the earlier poll which asked simply "Should America attack Afghanistan?" before any actual bombings of Afghanistan had begun, only 6% of respondents have answered "no" to the brand new poll that opened yesterday and asked specifically if respondents "support the U.S. attacks on targets in Afghanistan" that occurred yesterday.

But if you want to be more severely disturbed, there's always John Aravosis's article "Should America Use Nukes?" on About.com.

National Coming Out Day

You know, if I don't hurry up and finish this damned letter in time to get it in the mail tomorrow, I'll end up right on schedule for it to arrive at my parents' house on National Coming Out Day, and then I'll have to spend the rest of my life hopelessly marked as the very lemmingest of all the little gay lemmings everywhere.

I'm staying up and finishing it tonight if it kills me. That way I can go down in history as having been one day ahead of the lemmings.