As Gangs and Terrorists Battle it Out, Words of Wisdom from a Devastated Father

The Minutemen, besides being mostly racist and completely xenophobic, are now embracing the role of "gang of thugs" as they challenge a Central American gang known as MS-13 to fisticuffs. Meanwhile the immigrants crossing for work or to be with families and the activists monitoring the Minutemen have a new fear, becoming an innocent victim of crossfire when these two gangs go at each other.

Then there is the war between rival terrorist groups in Iraq. I'm not talking about Sunnis versus Shiites, I'm talking about Al Qaeda versus the U.S.A. Military. Today gang U.S.A. won a major victory by taking out the rival gang's leader. As with all gang violence, it was a hollow victory for the rest of us who must live on this planet or in our neighborhoods and try to survive in the midst of all this violence, fronting and senseless killing. The U.S.A. of course is milking this one, making all sorts of claims about how we got the information and how our precision bombing took him out. The media loves it, but of course who can fact check the claims of the pentagon. They can make up the perfect 24 Episode after the fact when they have a dead terrorist on their hands, even if the war overall seems to be going very badly.

The spokesperson for the rest of us? I nominate Michael Berg, father of Nicholas Berg who was beheaded, probably by Al Zarqawi himself, in 2004. Michael, who is also a Green Party candidate for Congress in Delaware, had this to say in response to the killing of the terrorist Al Zarqawi by the terrorists Bush, Rumsfeld, et. al.:

Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence ... Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.

I don't buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?