Dennis Kucinich (D Congressman, 10th District, Ohio) has said often, and I paraphrase, that the second war in Iraq is morally wrong because we are the aggressor. He proceeds to say that the weapons of mass destruction charge was false, the contention that Saddam sought Uranium from Niger was false, and that there was no connection between Saddam and Al Queda. All of which have proved to be true. The new attempt by the Republican dominated congress to equate Al Queda and the Iraq war, withdrawal with lack of patriotism and care for our armed services personnel is a "Rovian" move to draw attention away from the fact that Democrats do actually care for our armed services personnel who have been wrongfully deployed in a war that is killing thousands of innocent Iraqis as well as our own young men and women.

Congressman Kucinich is right, but I also wonder what is it in our society that has allowed us to proceed in this self-centered war with lacunae of amazing ignorance, the wrong (Six Month – remember?) war against terror, and then to continue to defend it after 3 years. It has certainly not produced the political stability in the Middle East that the Neo-conservative intellectual Republicans predicted. In fact, it has produced the opposite, a new terrorist government in Palestine, a belligerent Iran seeking atomic power and weapons, and an Iraq embroiled in civil unrest and aggression between the Sunni and Shia Islamic factions. While the current state of affairs may have been predictable from the outset in 2002 when Mr. Bush’s administration was gearing up for the current war, I continue to question what it was in our culture that allowed the American people to be so easily convinced that a preemptive war of aggression was the proper course to pursue.

Could it be that our society grants the right of men to aggression against one another, and that a corollary to that right is the right to bear arms against one another? Notice, I wrote “men,” not “men and women.” I speculate here that this right to aggression is also based in the opposition of the sexes into male equals superior, and female equals inferior. As proof I offer the following statements. Black, brown, and white male youths kill one another in the cities, and white male youths kill other youths and teachers in the schools. Expressing road rage men shoot others in highway altercations. Men on domestic air flights must be subdued after exploding into maniacal fits against fellow passengers and flight attendants. I also ask, does the assumed right to armed aggression extend to the culture at large? Is our culture a belligerent masculine entity that is defined by the right to bear arms against other cultures?

Stay tuned.