Harry Belafonte

boy, harry belafonte is really letting the bush administration have it.... i largely agree..how it is possible to NOT view US actions in irak as constituting anything other than state terror?

is our government and are we the governed not responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of iraquis that meant us no harm? bush himself has admitted to a lowball estimate of 30,000 dead iraquis (other analysts put the painful number at 100,000+)... most of them civilians...is their killing any less reprehensible or immoral than the death of americans on september 11th? when we drop a bomb, based on our "intelligence", purportedly targetting a terrorist or insurgent and an entire family of innocent iraqui civilians is killed why is that not terror? because we say we are freeing them from a brutal dictator?

sorry if i cannot endorse the proposition that the end justifies the means... what end?.. who are we to determine the ends and means for another people in their own land? is this not something the american people ought to think about? we read on a daily basis that an american or two or three died in irak.. an american soldier of WAR that is...but what of the 13 year old CIVILIAN girl that died because of US bomb falling on her house? what do you tell her father? "she died for a good end"? or "she died for your freedom"? or "she died to protect americans from terrorism"?...... its discomforting to think about stuff like this -i just can't help it- and when one does its easy to come off sounding a little bitter or kooky as belafonte -a renown humanitarian (see his UNICEF page at: http://www.unicef.org/people/people_harry_belafonte.html- is wont to do...but he's no senile old man..he's being a HUMAN being.... he knows exactly what he's talking about and its a shame more people don't..

here is harry belafonte's money quote from his speech delivered at duke university on MLK day:


"Killing is our easiest tool. When you look at the president who has led us into a dishonorable war that has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people, many our own sons and daughters, I ask myself what Dr. King would have asked...
"It is an act that has driven fear and terror into the hearts of the American people. What is the essential difference in quality of our humanity for those who would do the cruel and tragic deed of flying an airplane into a building and killing 3,000 innocent Americans and those who would lie and lead the nation into a war that has killed hundreds of thousands?
"Excuse me, fellow citizens, if the line for me becomes a little blurred."