THINK DIFFERENT

A military response, particularly an attack on Afghanistan, is exactly what the terrorists want. It will strengthen and swell their small but fanatical ranks.

Instead, bomb Afghanistan with butter, with rice, bread, clothing and medicine. It will cost less than conventional arms, poses no threat of US casualties and just might get the populace thinking that maybe the Taliban don't have the answers. After three years of drought and with starvation looming, let's offer the Afghani people the vision of a new future. One that includes full stomachs.

Bomb them with information. Video players and cassettes of world leaders, particularly Islamic leaders, condemning terrorism. Carpet the country with magazines and newspapers showing the horror of terrorism committed by their "guest". Blitz them with laptop computers and DVD players filled with a perspective that is denied them by their government. Saturation bombing with hope will mean that some of it gets through. Send so much that the Taliban can't collect and hide it all.

The Taliban are telling their people to prepare for Jihad. Instead, let's give the Afghani people their first good meal in years. Seeing your family fully fed and the prospect of stability in terms of food and a future is a powerful deterrent to martyrdom. All we ask in return is that they, as a people, agree to enter the civilized world. That includes handing over terrorists in their midst.

In responding to terrorism we need to do something different. Something unexpected..something that addresses the root of the problem. We need to take away the well of despair, ignorance and brutality from which the Osama bin Laden's of the world water their gardens of terror.

It is important that we learn to think in NEW ways. If we continue attacking in the old ways we will get the same old results. Look at what has been happening the middle east for thousands of years to see what we can expect if we attack with bombs and military force.

Do we want to live a life of fear as people in the middle east do?

I have been very discouraged watching the fascists, the young post punks with no identity parading with flags that actually say America Love it or Leave it. I remember those flags, and it gives me the heebie jeebies to see them out again. To me the frightening aspect of the this is that the bombing has given the faceless American a face, and it is not so different from how he looked in prewar Germany sixty years ago. These kids act like it's a football game, marching down Ventura Blvd. waving flags and yelling USA, yeah. They want to yell KILL, KILL, but they aren't that brave -- yet. Love it or Leave it is just a toe in the water of a fascist wave towering over their -- and our heads. I am afraid for my countrymen, I should say OF my countrymen, as much and more than and Arab hovering in the shadows.

If is a strange and evil coincidence, how this all falls so perfectly into the Bush plan of arms build up, or nuclear fortification, of the production of weapons of mass destruction that, until the bombing, were really out of the question politically. Why are they in the question now? What has changed? Has our morality changed? God truly help us if our morality is only relevant in times of peace. It is in these times that our people are tested. Is it not on anyone's lips that this enemy, who hates
America, does not claim any responsibility for this attack? Wouldn't he want to? Wouldn't it be a great victory? Is it not possible that the Bush administration and his Dad decided to take out any enemy they could set their sites on? anyone will do for now?

I sit at night and listen to these lunatics honking the horns of their forty-thousand dollar cars, stopping at Jamba Juice to rest their feet and flags, and wonder, who are these people anyway? They don't even see it anymore, the hypocrisy. It's all an imitation of patriotism, and imitation
of democracy, and an imitation of leadership. The fury, though, is real, and God help us if these people find a leader to focus their newfound hatred and fear.

Feeding the people of Afganistan.... I am so glad to hear these words of reason and hope today.

- Rickie Lee Jones