Complicity

Complicity. It is a word that describes the ulcer gnawing at my conscience. I felt its first twinge the day I watched in horror the televised air raid as our bombs lit Baghdad’s pre-dawn sky on March 20, 2003, the event that marked the beginning of the Bush Administration’s Operation Shock and Awe. I was neither shocked nor awed, only horrified as I imagined the fear and carnage that descended upon the streets of that ancient city as our weapons of mass destruction struck their targets one by one. There was a moment of surrealism, of disbelief that my government would actually invade another country without provocation. Iraq had caused us no harm and posed no imminent threat. This war was not even preemptive. There was no danger to preempt, at least none existed that some means short of an invasion could not have extirpated.

In the months preceding Shock and Awe, I observed with detached curiosity and amusement the Bush Administration’s clumsy slight of hands as it shuffled facts, seemingly mixing one deck of cards (al Qaeda) with another (Saddam Hussein). Clumsy because the Administration’s claims were contemporaneously refuted by reputable sources as being weak at best. The reports that contradicted the Administration’s claims were readily available to the public even though the mainstream media failed to put it into pablum for easy consumption. Surely, I thought, Congress with its almost unfettered access to a wealth of classified and unclassified information would demand that the Administration respond to these reports. I hoped against hope.

As the reality of Shock and Awe sank into me, the disbelief was replaced by outrage at Congress, other government officials who had the facts but didn’t speak out, the mainstream media for not living up to their responsibilities as our Fourth Estate, and the citizens who were paralyzed by fear into not questioning our government.

Yet through the heat of my outrage, I felt the first pangs of pain. I criticized others but what had I done as a citizen of the most powerful nation in the world? I stood aside and did little while my government plummeted into the abyss with devastating consequences. By not challenging the actions of my government by any and all legal means available to me, by that passivity I became complicit. I am an accomplice in my government’s immoral action that killed and wounded over 100,000 people, including our brave women and men in uniform, an action that is far from over.

Each time I see photographs of our dead soldiers being honored by the media, read about the plight of our wounded, see images of bloodied bodies of beautiful Iraqi children limp in the arms of their parents who are too bereft to do more than groan, I am overcome by such excruciating pain that I feel I must scream. Yet I know that that achieves nothing. Each day I spend paralyzed costs more lives, so I am moved to act now, to make my voice heard by my Congress. I intend to become a constant pain in its backside just as my complicity constantly gnaws at me. I come to this late, but there are still many more lives at stake.

It is my hope that each of you, as a citizen of a nation that many people around the world regard as the greatest experiment in democracy, will join me. Although trite from overuse, we must remember those wonderful words from our Constitution's preamble. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We the people must make our voices heard by those who represent us in Congress. Write, email, and call them as often as you can and demand. Demand that they represent YOU. Whether you want them to end this immoral war or impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for abuses of power including misleading this country into this disastrous war, make Congress listen to YOUR voice. They will try to paralyze you into silence by their excuses which are cloaked in political pragmatism, but do not listen because they are specious arguments. Do not let them think for you. Think for yourself. Remember the words Immanuel Kant wrote in 1787 describing enlightenment:

“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!”

“Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance (naturaliter maiorennes), nevertheless gladly remain immature for life. For the same reasons, it is all too easy for others to set themselves up as their guardians. It is so convenient to be immature! If I have a book to have understanding in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all. I need not think, so long as I can pay; others will soon enough take the tiresome job over for me.”