Not One, but Two Ruthless Murderers in the Washington Area… And Further Inequities That Stridently Cry to be Rectified

Everyone in the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. area is very much aware of the elusive sniper who without the slightest compunction shot and killed a dozen people throughout the area.  The sniper (now revealed to be an American convert to the Nation of Islam é not mainstream Islam.  The media’s tainting the story once again) calculatedly targeted peoples of all races, ethnicities, and religions.  His victims were men and women doing the most banal, normal, and conventional of life’s activities, such as buying groceries, mowing the lawn, and filling their gas.  The sniper was so base as to meticulously aim and fire his weapon at a child walking to school. 

 

Amidst this pitiless spree of pointless eradication, another killer with the same credentials came to Washington.  This man, however, was amicably invited é and to the White House.  He is vehemently denounced and detested all around the world as a genuine mass murderer and war criminal.  Furthermore, the peoples of whole nations know him to be a sinister killer.  He is lauded, however, in his minute yet powerful home country and, ironically, by the government of the world’s largest and only superpower. 

 

Ariel Sharon’s porcine, obese ass has been invited to the White House so many times I can scarcely keep count anymore.  The cruel and callous carnage that Sharon brought to the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon é and indeed all of Lebanon in 1982 – is no different than that which the notorious beltway sniper brought to Washington’s suburbs and its people in the past several weeks.       

 

The sheer baseness of Sharon’s and Israel’s heinous crimes against the humanity of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Lebanese, and others is completely ineffable.  Their actions have been and continue to be so sordid that they can’t even come close to being described in words.  Never in the history of the modern world has there been such a brazenly merciless killer as Ariel Sharon, and such a brazenly malicious nation as Israel.   

 

Well, there was Hitler.  But he was stridently denounced and subsequently disparaged.  Illustrating his callous and cold-blooded brutality towards Jews during World War 2 is now an industry that continues to gain ever-more prominence, this because the world must never forget the unforgivable crimes committed by him.  Ironically, as we all know too well, Sharon and Hitler are all too similar.  Sharon’s precedent was set by Hitler.  They are mirrors of one another, completely the same. 

 

Yet the more striking fact remains that Sharon is vociferously denounced and immensely abhorred by the whole world while at the same time lauded by the world’s only remaining superpower.   

 

When a veritable madman clearly and wholly responsible for committing the most egregious massacres in modern history is labeled a “man of peace” by the leader of the world’s lone power, it is disgustingly and plainly apparent that the status quo requires immediate and radical change.

 

When bonafide war criminals like Sharon are invited to the White House and when brazen espousers of genocide like Netanyahu are free to order around a toady, yes-man, and sanctimoniously sycophant Congress, a clear and conspicuous signal is sent to even the least astute of objective observers that there is a gargantuan need for reform, and very soon.

 

When blatant advocates of hate and malice like Jerry Falwell and Ann Coulter are daily and with the utmost affability invited to speak and spew wicked virulence on cable television the influence of which is worldwide, something is manifestly wrong.

 

When asinine men who have asinine answers to the problems of the world (O’Reilly) host adulated shows on popular cable and non-cable news networks, it is an evident sign that something is immensely amiss.

 

When these same men (Bill O’Reilly, Alan Keyes, Chris Matthews, etc., all flawless masters of endless duplicity) are proudly free to host their own TV shows on the networks of the most influential and clout-possessing population in the world, it is a vivid indicator that a grave and great inequity vociferously cries to be redressed, and to be redressed soon. 

 

And when these same individuals have the indubitable liberty to invite and ardently encourage bigots like Coulter, Safire, Thomas, Pipes, Emerson, etc. to speak bellicose animus against Islam, irrational diatribes against Muslims, indignant vilification of oppressed Palestinians, Iraqis, and others (Penn and Harrelson) , who dare have the audacity to speak up against the wanton global taint wrought by the U.S. government and its pugnacious sperm Israel, who dare be presumptuous enough to denounce the greatest barbarities and monstrosities of our timeéit is a most vivid testament to the need for drastic reform and upheaval. 

 

When such is the case, and it certainly is the case, it is a clear and lamentable witness to the desperate need for change, and immediately.

 

The Hague is where Sharon, Peres, Barak, Netanyahu, and pretty much all of the IDF belong.  But 2+2=5, and so Serbs and Rwandans can be war criminals while Israelis and Jews cannot

 

If only Americans could see the conspicuous reality before their eyes!  The tragic trepidation with which people in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia were living their lives for the past 3 weeks is exactly how Palestinians have always lived their lives for the past 50 years. Ever since Israel was built upon the foundation of the genocide é Holocaust é of Pales! tinians, this has been their lachrymose existence.  This is a rough analogy, as there is much disparity between a military occupation and a sniper, but one that is nonetheless germane and relevant.  Israeli snipers, too, have killed many a Palestinian man, woman, and child, and in a completely desultory fashion. 

 

With no contrition.  With absolutely no regard for the priceless sanctity of human life.  This has, and continues to be, the central hallmark of Sharon’s heinous, repugnant career as an incessant murderer, as well as the central hallmark of the D.C. sniper’s campaign of terror against the innocent.     

 

How, then, do we go about rectifying these flagrant inequities?  Only a diligent and dedicated struggle by all people in all facets of American and global society will result in positive change.

Sohaib A. Abdul Khaliq is a student in the Bay Area, CA, who seeks to indulge himself in creative intellectual pursuits.