[News] Advice for the Love-Lorn and the War-Torn

[Anti-Imperialist News]

ASK MS. LIBERTY: Advice for the Love-Lorn and the War-Torn

In today's column, our Statue of Liberty once 
again gasses up her torch to answer two timely letters:

Dear Green Lady,
      I am a gay soldier, trying to have safe sex 
at an air force base in Nevada. It is really 
rough here with that Don't Ask Don't Tell policy 
and all. Also I got assigned to pilot some of 
those drone planes that fly over Pakistan and are 
called "unmanned aerial vehicles." You look on a 
computer screen and drop bombs by remote control.
So far they like me here because of my experience 
in high school as a video game champ, but I hate 
those drone missions. Even though those AUVs are 
scientifically designed to only obliterate 
Islamic extremists, you never know for sure who 
you're hitting 7,000 miles away.
But since I found Billy, all that doesn't matter 
so much. Now, when our drones light up the sky, I 
think about Billy, and it's like him and me are 
playing "Call of Duty4: Modern Warfare" on my old 
Xbox360. So maybe this damn war might do some good after all.
      What bugs me is that, even though me and 
Billy are doing a hell of a job, we could get 
kicked out of the military just cause we're gay. 
That sounds like discrimination to me. How come 
the U.S. Armed Forces can't allow us gays to be 
all that we can be – lovers and killers? Isn't 
that our right as Americans, ma'am?

Dear Brad,
      Wake up and smell the corpses, dear. No, 
wait. You can't – they're too far away. In any 
case, remember that your President's first 
priority is to protect the nation. Three days 
after taking office, Mr. Obama ordered his first 
drone attack on Pakistan. Only months later did 
he announce that he wanted to repeal the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.
      To give your President a human-rights 
wake-up call from his war campaign, why not write 
him a little note on nice stationery? Remind him 
that, just like any other Americans, queers in 
the military deserve their chance to kick a 
little Third World ass. If you hang in there long 
enough, I'll wager that straight people 
everywhere will soon begin to see each of your 
missions as a surgical strike for gay and lesbian rights.

Dear Green Lady,
      I would like to know please how to get 
bloodstains out of an Oriental carpet. The carpet 
has been in my family for generations, and I 
would hate to lose it. Two of my children were 
lying on it last night, listening to the radio, 
when the planes came again. This time, they hit 
our house. There was so much blood! They bombed 
the electrical generator and the water supply for 
our town, so that the fire, when it started, 
could not be put out. It raged all night and, 
when morning came, I saw that most of my family lay dead.
      Then I noticed a little movement from under 
the carpet. I lifted it up, and there was my 
youngest daughter. She was still alive. I wrapped 
her in a piece of the carpet and carried her to 
the clinic. She might have lived if she received 
medical treatment. But the planes had bombed the clinic, too.
      Now I must clean this carpet. It is the 
only thing of my family that I have left. The 
trouble is, there is all this blood. Everywhere, 
blood. Tell me, please, how does one get rid of the blood?
-  A mother in Waziristan

Dear Islamic Extremist,
      I don't know what kind of low-grade media 
you're getting over there. If you had access to 
Western TV, you would see that THERE IS NO BLOOD! 
Zip. I have been watching these wars for years 
now, and have yet to see any blood.
      Like our President says, we want only peace 
and democracy for your backward, sinister 
country. And the best way to show people like you 
that we care is with a state-of-the-art military, 
working seamlessly with modern news outlets. Now, 
instead of massacred civilians, blackened 
villages, and little napalmed girls screaming 
naked in the street, you see well-groomed 
broadcasters in attractive fashions, talking 
about things. What you probably witnessed the 
other night was some old footage from the Vietnam 
War – with which this war has, of course, nothing in common.
Offhand, my guess is that you've fallen prey to 
the disinformation program of Al Jazeera, favored 
news source of Osama bin Laden. Perhaps they want 
you to confuse the term "carpet bombing" – which, 
thanks to the precision of computerized warfare 
is old hat – with the idea that someone actually bombed your carpet.
      There is no – I repeat, NO – blood. Why 
don't you buy yourself a Nintendo game, dear? Or 
better yet, relax with a news story about gays 
and lesbians trying to gain acceptance in the U.S. military.

©  Susie Day, 2010




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