PAGE 8
WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?
On January 16, 1991, Operation Desert Storm, the final phase of the Persian
Gulf War, began with airstrikes on Baghdad and Iraqi military positions. In Kuwait.
In less than a month the war was over. Iraq retreated from its summer conquest of
Kuwait, leaving behind burning oil fields and uncounted thousands of dead Iraqi
soldiers.
Lee Buelt wrote his immediate reactions to the war as it was occurring.
jinummr
—————■'———
BY LEE R. BUELT
‘Too many times, as we sat in the house, we'd
hear that you’d done it again — manhandled another
affair of state with your usual staggering incompetence.
Then, masking our worry with a nervous laugh, we ’d ask
you brightly, ‘How was the assembly today, dear? Any
thing in the minutes about Peace?' And my husband
would give his stock reply What’s that to you! Shut up!'
And I did"
-ARISTOPHANES, LYSISTRATA *
WAR! I'm angry because a handful of men compel me
to confront it. I have more important things to do than having
to worry, agitate, over war. Recently seven Marines were killed,
slaughtered by our own bullets no less. Friendly fire, it's called,
a nomenclature the military invented for oops, sorry about that’
death These are seven human lives lost, seven human families
in pain, grief. These deaths are not abstractions. One cannot
turn the channel and escape from them They are flesh and
bone, desire and love, soul and spirit, vanquished forever from
earth
President George Bush, the 41st President of the United
States of America, says this war is moral Who is he kidding?
War is never moral War is male aggression War is political
posturing War is the premeditated killing of the so-called enemy
War is an attitude, a state of mind perpetrated by older men
As Andrea Dworkin says: “Older men kill boys by generating and
financing wars Older men hate boys because boys still have the
smell of women on them War purifies, washes off the female
stink The blood of death, so hallowed, so celebrated, overcomes
the blood of life, so abhorred, so defamed.” War is death to the
innocent, the poor, the unlucky ones.
Throughout President George Bush’s address to the
nation television cameras scanned chamber of the House of
Representatives. Seated at polished wooden desks were,
predominantly, men in dark suits. These men sat at their desks
gracefully, legs crossed, confident in their beliefs, actions. When
it came time to applaud the rhetorical President George Bush,
most of the male members of Congress stood and enthusiasti
cally beat their hands together. Others seemed to simply go
along with the pomp, as to sit back might show impudent
behavior. I reacted with anger as I watched this scene — and
embarrassment for the shameless President George Bush.
He was cuckolding the audience with divine patriotism. I kept
asking myself, eyes searching the television screen Where are
the women?
I don’t understand war. I don’t comprehend what it is,
what it is supposed to accomplish, or why there has to be war,
Lee Buelt is a former Astoria resident and sometime
contributor to the NCTE. He is probably somewhere writing
something.
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given all the illuminating evidence of its brutality, loss of life and
shattering of family I do not believe government explanations
for war. Governments are only concerned with perception,
seeking public approval through rhetoric and propaganda.
I suppose there is a history to why there is war. I don’t
doubt that war can be connected anthropologically, sociologi
cally and psychologically to humanity's past. It must have to
historians a painted reality, explainable and reasonable. The
only reality I see in war is innocent death; the rest is political and
historical illusion.
Here we are, the divine USA, sending naive, propagan
dized, innocently hubristic women and men, a generation of
Big Mac Coke & Fries kids into battle. “We’re going to kick their
butts!" they shout heroically. War gives us heroes. Odysseus.
Alexander the Great Napoleon. Rommel. Eisenhower. Patton.
I abhor the thought of more heroes.
Before the war, before the choreographed AMERICA
AT WAR and WAR IN THE GULF television specials, I recall
images on the screen of men in dark suits sitting around U-
shaped conference tables. They smiled or looked grave, shook
hands, posed for TV and press. Where were the women?
A viewer might see a woman in the background, as
often as a northwest logger might spy a spotted owl.
I believe I have finally realized why the USA is at war.
We do not have women seated around the conference table.
Nor does any other nation. No equal amount of women, or
anywhere close to equal, negotiating, compromising, problem
solving, sharing responsibility and power on the issue of war.
We do not have the proper individuals rightfully participating
who know instinctively the ardent reality of life and death.
A woman who chooses to give birth also chooses to face
death. Death matches her steady gaze in childbirth, and either
takes her or lets her stay with her child. Men counter this
instinctive death experience with rituals designed to perpetuate
male dominion over women, test their strength, courage and
endurance, suppress pain and emotions, promote conquest
and dominance; in essence men test themselves against death.
Hence war.
President George Bush says all was done that could
be done to preserve peace in the Middle East. A baldfaced lie!
Women are not at the negotiating table. Women have birthed
every one of the individuals on the battlefield, yet are not
allowed an equal right to decide their fate.
There are myriad reasons for war, but no excuse for it.
Creating heroes is always a byproduct, which assists its perpet
uation. The hero of this television war will be the media darling,
jovial, testy, movie-like General H. Norman (“Stormin’ Norman”)
Schwartzkopf. I watch this telekinetic military transgressor joke,
gloat and point-a-finger at Saddam on TV He proudly describes
for viewers the war toys in use, their destructive capability. He
strokes patriotism to fever-pitch. My stomach churns with bile,
not so much for the man but for what he represents, for what the
military has done to him. He could have been a poet, a painter.
Instead he has dedicated his life to killing people. Books by
generals and other warmakers are on his desk. General, I say to
his TV image, humanity has experienced enough war. Thanks to
television we daily witness women and men weeping in streets
of shattered cities. These tragedies are not abstractions. When
the unlucky suffer, so do the rest of us.
The war in the desert did not have to happen.
Diplomacy, sanctions and other untried, unthought-of ideas
and proposals would have filtered through creative human
brains to resolve the conflict without war. Patience, brain power
and gender equality would have sought a peaceful humane New
World Order. By committing to this war we have given Saddam
Hussein power, a world stage to act out his fanatical dreams.
President George Bush and his male Knights of the Cabinet
have splattered blood all over themselves, which will not wash
off.
If only we might have a few women around those
negotiating tables, in the Cabinet, and even more in Congress,
in the United Nations, in all world governments, then just maybe
asinine, absurd, wasteful, male created and dominated war will
finally be stillborn.
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