Butcher or be butchered. Kill or be killed. This is the simple-minded, narrow perspective that our current administration has adopted. President Bush and his advisors have faithlessly given up on any further attempts at diplomatic negotiations in favor of a brutal killing war over oil. The war effort intends to affirm the United States’ financial and political domination over other nations, the obvious reason for this oxymoronic "war on terrorism."

Truth be told, we all have something to fear. This military effort puts us all on level ground. That is, as citizens, soldiers, human beings, we are expendable, bodies to be butchered. The deaths of 1 or 1,000 are the same when we act in the name of war. How many lives will be lost in order to "win" the war? And who will be the victor? Clearly, as far as President Bush is concerned, individuals are insignificant and the disruption of families is inconsequential. The bombardment of another nation, apparently, will have no grave aftermath regarding world security, and it will have no impact on our already fragile human consciousness. If the war effort intends to restore human rights, why not begin with our own country, where we presently deal with a corrupt police force, an inhumane and barbaric system of capital punishment, an abusive and exploitative economic system, and a nation abound with racist, sexist, and classist attitudes? Why not begin here? Why attack and conquer? And why in such a hurried, almost frantic manner?

Bush’s aggressive stance is frightening. It threatens world security and our own personal peace as individuals. We must not comply with the only choice he has presented us with: Butcher or be butchered. We are more than meat, more than bodies to be used at his disposal. We must continue to find alternatives to the international policies that Bush has so irresponsibly committed our country to.