How Can I Tell My Children the U.S. Doesn't Torture?

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Charleen Touchette

I am a mother of four. My children see the pictures of our young Americans torturing Iraqis. They hear our President say, "America does not torture." The Ten Commandments teach, "Thou shalt not kill," and "Thou shalt not lie." Yet my children see President Bush kill and lie everyday.

Maman's Terror by Charleen Touchette Author of "It Stops with Me"
Is this Christian? Is this American? My teenage daughter is appalled by the genocide in Darfur and the Bush administration's inadequate response. Shouldn't all Americans be appalled?

Bush is making American soldiers torture and use chemical warfare. I can hardly breathe when I think about how my tax money was used to torture people and to melt the flesh of innocent women and children with white phosphorus in Fallujah. How can we sleep at night when our money funds such horror in America's name?

We must stand up and save America's good name.

People talk about "us" and "them." But it is us who are doing this to other human beings. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, tens of thousands of Iraqi combatants, and over 3,100 good American soldiers have been killed.

We, Americans, are doing this; it is our money that pays for the destruction; it is our president and congress that are doing it; and we can stop it.

Two things, we can vote with our voices, and with our actions. We live on one earth; think about it, and act like it.

Everything is connected, and each time I turn on a light switch, I need to think about where that energy comes from and if the way it was produced hurts or benefits life. If I extend that question to everything I consume, it won’t be possible to use plastic without knowing the consequence might be the murder or mutilation of a child in Iraq to protect my “right” as an American to petroleum products.

And I won’t be able to forget that drilling for oil on that California high school campus gave American teenagers fatal cancers, or that emissions from plants making plastic kill inner city youth with asthma.

This thinking won’t make me stop using plastic all together. After all, I’m a modern woman, a mother in the modern world who loves the conveniences just like everyone else. But it is time we look at the real cost of our American lifestyle -- the cost to our environment, our children’s future, and our souls.

How safe are Americans when our government uses torture and chemical warfare? My children want to travel, but I’m terrified they’ll face the anger of the world at what George W. Bush has done in the name of Americans.

American mothers, and mothers everywhere, want peace and justice. We don’t want Bush sending our young people to Iraq to kill in the name of protecting us and our children. It doesn’t start with them and it isn’t their fault; it starts with me and you.

There is no path, no blueprint, no road map to peace; the path is peace. Act peace, be peace, buy peace.

Charleen Touchette
Santa Fe, New Mexico

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Charleen Touchette is an artist, writer, curator, art critic, educator, and activist. Her bio is at http://members.authorsguild.net/touchart/bio.htm.
Originally posted to Buzzflash on November 30, 2005. Death toll updated February 26, 2007.