Monday, September 12, 2011

Bigotry

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2011/09/12/18690027.php


Bigotry
by Ted Rudow III, MA
Monday Sep 12th, 2011
Untold thousands have died in the decade since then, among them the family of Masuda Sultan, an Afghan woman living in New York at the time of the 9/11 attack. She soon got word that 19 members of her family had been killed in a U.S. bomb attack in Afghanistan.
After 9/11, the bigotry and the harassment really just became a lot more intense. It went from being something that experience every once in a while to something that is experience every day. Across the country, Sikhs, along with others identified as Muslim, Arab or South Asian, were targeted
These are costly defeats for America and the rest of the world. According to a conservative estimate of Brown University, there have been almost 140,000 civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. The massive retaliation cost more than $3 trillion dollars that would have been better used in America’s schools or in the wallets of US citizens.
But instead of cultivating public spirit, President Bush sought to find a pretext—any pretext—to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. This is his most tragic legacy, the fact that America can no longer even mourn its victims properly—because Americans have long been not just victims, but also perpetrators.
Ted Rudow III, MA

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