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Farrell blasts
Bush's zeal for retaliation
By Jeanne Hoffa
On-line Forty-Niner
Mike Farrell said
he is very tired. Tired and discouraged. And for the moment
it shows, as his eyes are downcast and his frame slightly
bent over, perhaps dragged down by a long day of shooting
and a head plugged by allergies.
The M*A*S*H star has spent much of his free time during the
past 30 years talking to audiences, engaging legislators,
combing bookshelves and pleading with governors to aim for
a greater understanding on issues of human rights. His mission
has also been to convince people of the cruelty and inconsistency
of the death penalty.
But the depression that came with last month's attacks is
hitting hard, he told close to 300 people at the Carpenter
Performing Arts Center Monday night. He spoke of the carnage
caused by the terrorists.
"The violation by the perpetrators of every principle
of humanity. It's nearly overwhelming," he said.
But he is outraged at President Bush's declaration of war.
He said he thinks people's anguish is being exploited - that
the president is directing the country's natural emotional
response towards exacting vengeance.
"Bush's moment in history has put the fate of many people
in all parts of the world in the hands of a man who is, in
my own view, clearly unequipped for the task."
Farrell called the ghastly attacks crimes - crimes committed
by criminals. "common, vulgar, vicious perpetrators of
a foul deed.
"Rather than glorifying these acts as warfare and implicitly
elevating their architects to the realm of worthy adversary,"
Farrell said, "we need to treat these terrorists as criminals,
unworthy of respect.
My fear is that unless someone in Washington is wiser than
we've been given reason to believe, we're heading into a plan
of action that will destroy innocents, further alienate huge
numbers of people, and virtually guarantee the visitation
on us of more terrorist activity."
He accused Bush of dualistic thinking, when the president
said, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists"
proposing that the terrorists attacked the United States.
because "they hate our freedoms."
Farrell called it arrogant for the United States to never
consider any responsibility for inspiring Middle Eastern contempt.
He added that invoking God's name in America's behalf, but
evidently against Allah, was small-minded and indicative of
a frighteningly simplistic world-view.
"The president's dictating, in front of a world audience,
terms the Taliban must meet, was either an incredibly ignorant
choice or a clever gambit that exposes his intentions,"
Farrell said, "because it leaves them with no alternative
but to respond in the negative in order to save face... reciting
a litany of their strange religious requirements, holding
them up to ridicule before the world.
"Doing so, while pretending that the Taliban's current
position of power isn't a result of our own meddling in the
area, and forgetting, or not knowing, that the seemingly weird
and repulsive religious laws described were in place before
the Taliban took power are cheap theatrics designed to build
antipathy toward them."
The appropriate response the world should take, Farrell said,
is to try any perpetrators before an international criminal
court - based on the model of the International War Crimes
Tribunals at The Hague. This would give them the condemnation
of the international community, although he has little hope
on making a moral impression upon them.
"Suicidal zealots armed with a belief in the glory of
martyrdom for their cause, will not, once found, be easily
subdued," Farrell said.
He said he hopes Americans will familiarize themselves with
the history of the relationship between the United States
and the Middle East.
"To understand is not to justify," Farrell said.
"To understand some part of the motivation of the flames
of wrath on the part of zealots and extremists.
"If we don't make an attempt to understand, we doom ourselves
to a repetition of old attitudes and actions - some of which
have resulted in our being labeled in that region, 'the Great
Arrogance.' War talk is shorthand for retaliation, revenge,
death and destruction."
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