[sf3006]

This is from an email I received ...


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Subject: Don't close your blinds

The other day, my nine year old son wanted to know why we were at war...My husband looked at our son and then looked at me.

My husband and I were in the Army during the Gulf War and we would be
honored to serve and defend our Country again today. I knew that my husband would give him a good explanation.

My husband thought for a few minutes and then told my son to go stand in our front living room window.

He said "Son, stand there and tell me what you see?"

"I see trees and cars and our neighbor's houses." he replied.

"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United
States of American you are President Bush."

Our son giggled and said "OK."

"Now son, I want you to look out the window and pretend that every house and yard on this block is a different country" my husband said.

"OK Dad, I'm pretending."

"Now I want you to stand there and look out the window and pretend you see Saddam come out of his house with his wife, he has her by the hair and is hitting her. You see her bleeding and crying. He hits her in the face, he throws her on the ground, then he starts to kick her to death. Their
children run out and are afraid to stop him, they are screaming and crying,
they are watching this but do nothing because they are kids and they are
afraid of their father. You see all of this, son....what do you do?"

"Dad?"

"What do you do son?"

"I'd call the police, Dad."

"OK. Pretend that the police are the United Nations. They take your call.
They listen to what you know and saw but they refuse to help.

What do you do then son?"

"Dad.......... but the police are supposed to help!" My son starts to whine.

"They don't want to son, because they say that it is not their place or your
place to get involved and that you should stay out of it," my husband says.

"But Dad...he killed her!!" my son exclaims.

"I know he did...but the police tell you to stay out of it. Now I want you
to look out that window and pretend you see our neighbor who you're
pretending is Saddam turn around and do the same thing to his children."

"Daddy...he kills them?"

"Yes son, he does. What do you do?"

"Well, if the police don't want to help, I will go and ask my next door
neighbor to help me stop him." our son says.

"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get
involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my
husband says.

"But Dad, I NEED help!!! I can't stop him by myself!!"

"WHAT DO YOU DO SON?" Our son starts to cry.

"OK, no one wants to help you, the man across the street saw you ask for
help and saw that no one would help you stop him. He stands taller and puffs
out his chest. Guess what he does next son?"

"What Daddy?"

"He walks across the street to the old ladies house and breaks down her door and drags her out, steals all her stuff and sets her house on fire and
then...he kills her. He turns around and sees you standing in the window
and laughs at you. WHAT DO YOU DO?"

"Daddy..."

"WHAT DO YOU DO?" Our son is crying and he looks down and he whispers, "I'd close the blinds, Daddy."

My husband looks at our son with tears in his eyes and asks him. "Why?"

"Because Daddy.....the police are supposed to help people who needs
them...and they won't help.... You always say that neighbors are supposed
to HELP neighbors, but they won't help either...they won't help me stop
him...I'm afraid....I can't do it by myself Daddy.....I can't look out my
window and just watch him do all these terrible things and...and.....do
nothing... so....I'm just going to close the blinds.... so I can't see what
he's doing........ and I'm going to pretend that it is not happening."

I start to cry. My husband looks at our nine year old son standing in the
window, looking pitiful and ashamed at his answers to my husband's questions and he says...

"Son"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Open the blinds because that man.... he's at your front door... "WHAT DO
YOU DO?"

My son looks at his father, anger and defiance in his eyes. He balls up his
tiny fists and looks his father square in the eyes, without hesitation he
says: "I DEFEND MY FAMILY DAD!! I'M NOT GONNA LET HIM HURT MOMMY OR MY SISTER, DAD!!! I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM, DAD, I'M GONNA FIGHT HIM!!!!!"

I see a tear roll down my husband's cheek and he grabs our son to his chest and hugs him tight, and says... "It's too late to fight him, he's too
strong and he's already at YOUR front door son.....you should have stopped him BEFORE he killed his wife, and his children and the old lady across the way. You have to do what's right, even if you have to do it alone, before its too late." my husband whispers. THAT scenario I just gave you is WHY we are at war with Iraq. When good men stand by and let evil happen son, THAT is the greatest atrocities in the world won't affect him. "YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT! EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO DO IT ALONE!" BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN! BE PROUD OF OUR TROOPS!! SUPPORT THEM!!! SUPPORT AMERICA SO THAT IN THE FUTURE OUR CHILDREN WILL NEVER HAVE TO CLOSE THEIR BLINDS..."

This should be printed in every newspaper and posted in every school in
America. Of course that won't happen so we'll use the Internet.

If your blinds are closed do nothing with this email. If they are open I do
not need to tell you what to do.

[seahorse]

Why didn't America do anything to stop the genocide in Rwanda and instead let over a million people get hacked to-death with machetes? Why didn't we do anything in Rwanda to help all the kids being hacked to death but we did invade Iraq? Hmmmm, maybe its because, unlike Iraq, Rwanda doesn't have any oil. Maybe its bc Rwandans are black. Maybe both reasons. Maybe that's the same reason we did nothing to stop the genocide in Liberia or any number of other countries suffering genocide.

[Hawkcreek]

--

[seahorse]

For being international tough guy, liberator, democracy police, Bush/Cheney sure don't care anything about the oppresive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Jordan that they support (guess the blinds are closed at the White House). They also didn't hesitate to send lots and lots of money to Ubekistan (that is totalitarian and killing innocents). I'll email the White House and tell them to open their blinds. If they don't, the Saudi Tyrants may come knocking on our door - oh, I forgot, they already did on 9-11, we just got confused about who came knocking. We thought it was Sadam. I guess we got confused, or maybe we aren't so tough and divine after all. Maybe we were scared. Whatever it was, its certainly hypocritical.

Until the White House opens their blinds, I'll keep my blinds closed too. This email is a bunch of crap. It doesn't appeal to patriotism, it appeals to ignorance.

[Specop_007]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seahorse', 'W')hy didn't America do anything to stop the genocide in Rwanda and instead let over a million people get hacked to-death with machetes? Why didn't we do anything in Rwanda to help all the kids being hacked to death but we did invade Iraq? Hmmmm, maybe its because, unlike Iraq, Rwanda doesn't have any oil. Maybe its bc Rwandans are black. Maybe both reasons. Maybe that's the same reason we did nothing to stop the genocide in Liberia or any number of other countries suffering genocide.

[erl]

The U.N. is worthless.

[Falconoffury]

Iraq was hardly in a position to threaten its neighbors let alone the United States from the beginning of the Iraq war. Saddam would never make it to the doorstep of the United States, so that part of the story had no bearing in reality. I also find a flawed hypothetical scenario to be a poor way of answering the original question. The parents effectively avoided the question while instilling violent feelings about other countries in an impressionable young child. That's the worst parenting I've seen in some time.

The Iraq war was not even an effective way of fighting terrorists. The greatest strength that terrorists have is their secrecy. They can move invisibly from country to country, and their weapons are often obtained secretly. The best way to fight terrorism is through intelligence and border control. The terrorist attacks just gave the Bush administration the opportunity it needed to seize the most untapped oil rich country in the world at the time.

[smallpoxgirl]

What a load of dung. George Bush and the United States Government make Sadam Hussein look like the tooth fairy. The only reason little Jimmy's dad went over to the neighbor's house was to steal his stereo. When the neighbor was beating his wife, Jimmy's dad handed him a baseball bat.

[smiley]

What a lame story.

The story was never about oppression. It was about the US of A claiming that Saddam had nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.

They called the UN to intervene. The UN said, OK we will go in once we have proof of the existence of these weapons. The UN couldn't find any proof and they didn't believe the 'proof' which fabricated by the Whitehouse hawks, so they refused to go in.

The Whitehouse went in alone and 2000 military an 100.000 civilian deaths later they still haven't found a shred of evidence of these weapons. In fact they gave up looking for them.

End of story.

Opening the blinds has no use whatsoever if you rely only on a new American century bulletin board to tell you what you see.

[capslock]

What a bunch of hooey.

The last time we needed our 'country defended', the military fell on their fat asses and the World Trade Center got hit.

Maybe if the military wasn't being used to push other people around on foreign soil they would be better at 'defending America'.

Yankee come home.

[arocoun]

Perhaps a new, more accurate anology is in order:

-----

One day, little Jimmy asks me, "Why are we in a war with Iraq?" Well, I came up with an interesting idea...

"Okay, stand in front of that big window. Pretend like we're the US, you're our president, and that all the other houses are other countries. Are you pretending?"

"Yep," Jimmy says," this is going to be fun!" It sure is.

"Okay, now, you and a few other countries have been going around on your blocks--your continents. You've been going door to door, telling people to get out of their houses or else, then rebuilding the houses however you wanted. And even now, you watch over those houses to make sure they're still doing what you tell them to do. This is called imperialism."

Jimmy looked confused. "Why would people let me do that to them?"

"Well, you see, we have bigger guns than they do, and when people don't do what we want them to do, we ruthlessly threaten and kill them." Jimmy started to get upset, so I tried to make him feel better. "Don't look so sad. It's not like they'll be able to do anything to us! We're big and strong!"

"But I don't want to do that to people. It's BAD!" A few tears started to roll down Jimmy's eyes, but that's just too bad. Jimmy is going to have to toughen up, or he'll be an bleeding heart, anti-patriotic liberal.

"Well, you see Jimmy, we aren't the only people that do imperialism! And, we've been doing it in the name of democracy, so our imperialism is automatically good! Oh, and while we're on the subject, if any hippy or liberal tells you we don't have a democracy, they don't know what they're talking about."

Jimmy took a moment to stop crying, then asked his question again. "But, why are we at war with Iraq?"

"Well, Iraq--which is all the way down there in that cruddy looking house on that cruddy looking block--has been doing bad stuff, like attacking the houses next to it, and storing guns as big as ours without our permission, and even treating its own people bad. And, we're afraid that that house is going to do imperialism, too. So, because of the way they treat their own people, they're a little bit worse than we are."

Jimmy, being such a blissfully ignorant child, was utterly confused. "But, shouldn't we be stopping our imperialism first? And what about that house on that other block that I keep hearing fights and yelling in?!"

"Well, our imperialism gets us lots of nice, cheap stuff to buy; and that other house doesn't matter to us. You see, that block that Iraq is on has lots of gasoline in it. So, if we fight them, and bring democracy to them, we can also take all their gas, and get a new car."

"But don't they have guns as big as ours?"

"...No. Not really. But it got our people to fight, didn't it?"

Jimmy stared at me in disbelief, and after a short while of just standing there, shocked, he ran upstairs, crying. It seems it's going to take him a few years to get used to the way we do things.

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arocoun', 'A') few tears started to roll down Jimmy's eyes, but that's just too bad. Jimmy is going to have to toughen up, or he'll be an bleeding heart, anti-patriotic liberal.

[katkinkate]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.').....
"Son, our next door neighbor sees what is happening and refuses to get
involved as well. He refuses to open the door and help you stop him," my
husband says....

[ejacob3]

Rhetorical crap...right wing feel good crack.

[eastbay]

Gooodness, that was really idiotic.

This is more realistic:

.... and imagine you, Jimmy, and I get a few neighbors to help us break into their house, tie up Saddam, throw his wife out of their house, kill their children, steal everything of theirs worth stealing, destroy the rest of his stuff, take up residence in his house and kill anyone who tries to get us out.

Now, wouldn't that be a nice idea Jimmy?

[0mar]

I think they forgot the part where we give Saddam the weapons, turn away while he kills his wife and kids, give him kickbacks for attacking his neighbors and then lure him into attacking his neighbors for the pretext to taking his home full of valubles.

[keehah]

Well the UN may be worthless, but what should the neighbourhood do? The problem is the head of one of the larger households is starting to 'lose it' while he has his family armed and stationed all over the neighbourhood and is taking down other families at will and belligerently threatening the rest and saying he has no neighbourhood rules to follow and will do what he wants and torture whoever he wants.

[Aaron]

This reminds me of a comedy routine I saw.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ere was the plan.

Sometime in the 80’s (this was brilliant and worked out great) we make a long distance call.

It goes like this.

“May I speak with Saddam, please”?
“Hey dude, how the hell are ya. I heard ya got this little problem going on with Ayatollah Khomeini. Just so happens we got some guns for sale”.

Then ya go to Iran and ya say, “Psst, Iraq's got a gun. You better get some guns”. Just so happens we got some for sale.

Next you go back to Iraq and say, “Psst, they know about the gun man”.

[Keith_McClary]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('arocoun', 'P')erhaps a new, more accurate anology is in order:

[bobcousins]

I think it says a lot about the US people that the story is pitched at the level of a 9 year old.