Personal note: Some readers of Axis of Logic may have noticed that as editor of Axis of Logic, I suspended writing poetry and essays 5 months ago. I had to take a break.

Who has enemies? 

                                                                         U.S Apache Longbow Attack Helicopter         
Recently, I received a phone call from an acquaintance who had not contacted me for several years. He spoke of the people in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. He was critical of the thousands of people trapped in the Superdome, saying they "should have organised themselves". He angrily blamed the people and spoke of the looting. I heard his words in disbelief. I pointed out that the people were in shock and noted the government�s failure to respond. He replied, "The federal government�s hands were tied because they cannot act until asked to do so by the governor of the state." Then he set upon the governor of Louisiana, calling her incompetent for not asking the Bush regime for help. I listened and asked the walls around me a question I�ve been asking myself and others for the last 4 years: "Who is the enemy?"

Everyone experiences conflict with others in their lives to varying degrees. As children, we first have minor conflict with our parents, siblings and acquaintances. We challenge our parents� authority and engage in sibling rivalry, classroom disagreements and playground fights. But real "enemies" - those who really mean to do us harm are rare. When asked who are our enemies, we tend to think of a few people in our past who have harmed us personally. But for most of our lives, we prefer to focus more on our friends and acquaintances rather than our "enemies". We have little time to think about our enemies and prefer not to talk about them. Thinking and talking about them brings us down. We don�t want to be negative and angry all the time. We want to live in a state of peace - not a state of conflict. We were even taught to stay out of the enemy�s way and ignore him or her. We�ve been trained to avoid the bully, to avoid conflict, to avoid the fight ... to walk away when confronted. We were taught to "love our enemies even as we love ourselves", to "do good to those who curse us" and when struck on one cheek, to offer the other rather than to fight back. "It�s the Christian way". We insulate ourselves against thoughts of the enemy and like to believe that we have none - or at least very, very few.

But what if there are those who have targeted you personally. What if there are those who have identified you as their enemy in a war that is not of your choosing? What if you have tried to walk away from the conflict, but they keep coming after you? What if there are those who want to destroy your way of life, your community, your friends and your loved ones? What if there really are those who want to ruin your life?

One of the most difficult things in life for many of us is to face the fact that we do indeed have real enemies - enemies who hate our values of personal freedom, self determination and self governance. But why would anyone want to destroy you? What have you done to them? Why do they despise you and who are they?

To answer these questions, we can begin by identifying who we are ... what are our values and what do we represent to them.

Clarifying our values is a worthwhile exercise and can help us identify any enemies of those values. It should be an ongoing, daily process. My Tao friends call that process, "cultivation". Most people would agree that there are a few universal values upon which most human beings agree: showing kindness to ourselves and to others; having compassion on those less fortunate; contributing to the health of the community; self-responsibility; self-determination within limits of the community; physical security and well-being; living creatively; fairness in economic matters and conflict resolution and striving to live at peace with our neighbors. Who is offended by these values? Who is the enemy of these values?

Rollo May (1909-1994), the well-known humanist of our time once observed that people often deal with their own shortcomings and weaknesses by relocating the evil within to people outside of themselves. They then set about to destroy their own sins by destroying the others whom they identify as "evil". As an example, he referred to people in the United States during the cold war who located evil in their "enemy" - the "communists" - and specifically the people of the Soviet Union. This relocation of the evil within ourselves was followed by a mission to destroy the Soviets and thus purge ourselves of sin.

The enemy identified for us

It is interesting to consider this theory today - in a time when there is so much talk about our "enemies". As we approach the 4 year anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon we are reminded of the many references made to our "enemies" by Washington. The men in Washington and the Corporate Media have accommodated our "need" for an enemy in whom we can locate our sins, absolving ourselves of guilt. The government has identified our enemy, of course, as "the terrorists". Their descriptive names vary among terms like, "insurgents", "suicide bombers", "gunmen", "criminals", "extremists", to name a few. But the same U.S. government and their corporate media have been careful to build linkages between those descriptive terms and specific national, racial, ethnic and religious identities - identities like "Taliban", "Afghan", "Iraqi", "Palestinian", "Iranian", "North Korean", "Taliban", and of course, Muslim. For many U.S. citizens, it�s a logical extension to make war on those �evil enemies�. One necessary component of this construction is to think of the enemy and of ourselves as monolithic groups - a collective "us" and a collective "them". To think otherwise allows some of us to question this manufactured reality and to think of the enemy as individuals - children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and grandfathers - people.

Portraits of the enemy

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, the Bush regime and corporate press have attempted to define our enemies for us. They have asked us to support their war against those they tell us were responsible for the attacks. The speech writers of George Walker Bush have described our enemies for us:

On September 11, 2001, George Walker Bush described our enemy as a "faceless coward":

"Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended."

Since then, the government has defined our "enemies" for us in many other terms and Bush has boasted about what he intended to do with these enemies in the following quotes [1]:

"Ours is a war against terrorism in general. Mr. bin Laden is one of the worst, but as you may remember, we published the 22 most wanted. He is one of 22 we're after."

"In terms of Mr. bin Laden himself, we'll get him running. We'll smoke him out of his cave and we'll get him eventually."

"On September the eleventh, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country."

"No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate."

"I can hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

"Do I forget the lessons of September 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time."

"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant. And that is the force of human freedom."

"Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes."

"Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups or seeks to possess weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilised world and will be confronted."

"Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."

"Our enemies in Iraq are good at filling hospitals, but they don't build any. They can incite men to murder and suicide, but they cannot inspire men to live in hope and add to the progress of their country. The terrorists only influence is violence and their only agenda is death."

"Our enemies send other people's children on missions of suicide and murder. They embrace tyranny and death as a cause and a creed. We stand for a different choice - made long ago, on the day of our founding. We affirm it again today. We choose freedom and the dignity of every life."

"Our enemies believed America was weak and materialistic, that we would splinter in fear and selfishness. They were as wrong as they are evil."

"The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology and give momentum to reformers across the region."

"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them."

"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

"All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: The United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."

"All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against civilization."

"The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

"In Afghanistan, terrorists have done everything they can to intimidate people ..."

And of course, we cannot forget Bush�s infamous statement, identifying whole nations as comprising the "axis of evil" in his January 29, 2002 State of the Union speech.

"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."

Portraits of the United States of America

Washington and its media know that it is not enough to define our enemies for us. If they are to obtain our support for their war, they must also define the people of the United States in relation to those enemies. We have been trained to locate our own wickedness in a loathsome enemy and see ourselves as the good ... the courageous .... liberators of the enemy�s victims. It is important that we see ourselves as the righteous ones who have a mission of destroying evil - and only those in Washington have the wisdom, knowledge and authority to identify the evil ones - the enemy. They also tell us who we are:

"The story of America is the story of expanding liberty: an ever-widening circle, constantly growing to reach further and include more."

"Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are."

"History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom's fight."

"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

"America will lead by defending liberty and justice because they are right and true and unchanging for all people everywhere."

"Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom."

"Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation."

"America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable right for life."

"We will extend the frontiers of freedom."

"Our enemies believed America was weak and materialistic, that we would splinter in fear and selfishness. They were as wrong as they are evil." [Inference: America is strong and is not materialistic.]

"America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace -- a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman."

"Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery."

"America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength � tested, but not weary � we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom."

"Our Nation this generation will lift a dark threat of violence from our people and our future. We will rally the world to this cause, by our efforts and by our courage. We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail."

"And I hope you will join me in expressing thanks to one American for the strength, and calm, and comfort she brings to our Nation in crisis: our First Lady, Laura Bush."

"We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer."

When I was working in the Tennessee State Prison, I knew a con artist who was doing hard time for his crimes. He once told me that the most successful of his cons were when he was able to leave his victim "feeling good about what I did to him".

Values of the empire

George W. Bush equates fighting, killing, maiming and dying in Iraq with the attributes of decency, idealism and strength:

"And I have met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag, and said a final goodbye to a soldier they loved ... I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am in their prayers � to offer encouragement to me. Where does strength like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride? It is because they know their loved one was last seen doing good. Because they know that liberty was precious to the one they lost. And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong."

He makes the appeal for military recruitment of our sons and daughters:

"I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself, and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country but to its character."

1. Who "seeks to possess weapons of mass destruction [and] is a grave danger to the civilised world"
   
   
2. Who are the "faceless cowards" who send other peoples sons and daughters into harm�s way but who themselves have never been exposed to a single day of military combat?
   
   
3. Who has become an "enemy of freedom" by undermining the civil liberties of the people who live under their governance?
   
   
4. Who "knocked these [WTC] buildings down" - through cynical, imperialist foreign policy, a failure of national security ... or worse?
   
   
5. Who is the "madman", capable of killing tens of thousands of innocent children, women and men in unprovoked attacks showing no remorse and no conscience?
   
   
6. Who has conducted a "reign of hatred and resentment" for the last 4 years?
   
   
7. Whose "government ... supports, protects or harbours terrorists [and] is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes."
   
   
8. Whose "outlaw regime" has systematically violated the Geneva Convention by committing an unprovoked war on another country; torturing and murdering prisoners of war; committed multiple inhumane acts* against prisoners of war; continues to use weapons of depleted uranium and Napalm; bombing Iraqi Television, rigging the trials of prisoners of war, filming prisoners of war, conducting extra-judicial assassinations - even during wartime; participated in a massacre of prisoners of war at Sheberghan prison in Afghanistan; and by committing many other violations of the rules of the Geneva Convention. [2]
   
   
9. Who is "good at filling hospitals"?
   
   
10. Who "incites men to murder and suicide"
    
    
11. Whose "only influence is violence and only agenda is death
    
    
12. Who "sends other people's children on missions of suicide and murder"
    
    
13. What is the "world's most dangerous regime ... with the world's most destructive weapons"?

But I would like to refer to another statement made by George Walker Bush on March 22, 2002, when his regime had already completed their plans to bomb and terrorize the Iraqi people one year later:

Bush�s reference to Saddam Hussein was echoed by his spokesperson, Scott McClellan 9 days later:

In The Semantics of Empire (Asia Times), M. Shahid Alam noted that the most cynical side of these statements can be found in the term shared by all these politicians: "his own people". We are to somehow believe that it is a terrible thing to kill "our own people" but not so bad to kill our brothers and sisters who happen to live in another land. By logical extension, don�t kill your neighbor but a cross-town murder might be okay. Since 9/11/01, the U.S. government and corporate media have made it clear that killing them abroad is unavoidable and profiling them here at home is at the very worst, an unfortunate necessity for "national security". Such logic feeds the endemic racism that has changed its face but has never waned in U.S. history. When the enemy kills an Iraqi or Afghani or Palestinian, he kills one of us - a member of the human family.

At this time in our history we see our sons and daughters being maimed and killed by the leadership of our country. We see the government�s failure to provide us with health care, a liveable wage, decent housing. We see the government�s failure to provide our children with an education that allows them to compete in the "new global economy". We see our workers holding down 2 jobs, away from their families, pounding out mundane chores in government/corporate factories and service industries day after day and year after year for survival income. Nowhere can the enemy be seen more clearly than in the systematic busting of labor unions, denial of a liveable wage, unemployment and oppression of the poor in the richest country in the world. We see our government "poison-gassing it�s own people" with depleted uranium weapons abroad and polluted air, water and the effects of global warming at home. We see those governing the richest nation on earth failing to prevent and protect against national disasters like Hurricane Katrina. In a "let them eat cake moment", George Bush�s mother described the thousands who sit in the squalor and chaos of the Superdome. She said they "were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them" - before returning to her multi-million dollar home in Houston. 

The Global Corporate Empire and their corporate media have always reinforced the notion that there are essential differences among those in leadership in the U.S. government - differences between the 2 ruling political parties ... between the so-called "conservatives" and the so-called "liberals". But now more than ever before, the people of the United States are aware that there are no essential differences among them - not one - and that our "elections" are a sham. In his book, The People as Enemy, John Spritzler makes an irrefutable case that World War II was never between the "Allies" and the "Nazis". He successfully argues that World War II was between the ruling class in governments from Germany to Japan to the United States and the UK - and the working class of all these countries - "the people".

Because of the well-paid, sophisticated media of the ruling class, it is very difficult for "the people" to think of their own government as "the enemy". It is much easier to believe that the two political parties in the U.S. are merely political opponents to one another and that our real enemy has a brown skin, wears strange clothing, speaks a different language - a kind of Darth Vader who seeks to destroy us - the "Americans".

Perhaps as a society we are now finally growing out of our adolescence and maturing into an adult population capable of governing ourselves. I recently learned that 26 buses have already been filled to carry U.S. citizens from a northern city to Washington D.C. to demand an end to the criminal behavior of the government. We expect a massive number to join them, arriving from cities, towns and the countryside throughout the United States. Join us on September 24, 2005. If not now ... when?