Find the guilty – But don’t start this war!

By Annisette & Thomas Koppel
The Savage Rose, Los Angeles, Calif.

The recent terror action is a horrendous crime. The whole world was taken hostage and forced into a new situation, noone will benefit from, except perhaps the arms industry. Of course the guilty minds behind the crime must be brought to justice.

In no way this leaves the US administration any right to start a war against any nation. The remarks from several government officials regarding ‘a very big hammer’ and open threats of the use of nuclear weaponry are a sickening repeat of the mindset behind the terror action itself. The US government too is taking the world hostage now, threatening to kill thousands of innocent victims and bury them in rubble, leaving their loved ones in the exact same devastation as so many in this country since last week. The threats in themselves bring together the victims of yesterday with the victims of tomorrow. They are all wives, children, fathers, grandparents. Their sorrow and grief will be the same.

The big media do not tell the whole truth. They are presenting an image of an American people wanting blood, and a likewise incomplete image of a world outside the US eager to kill. The reservations are not being mentioned or taken seriously. Like the govenment, the big media are, deliberately as it seems, confusing the solidarity with the victims, with thirst for medireview revenge, leading only to more tragedy and more suffering for all peoples, including the American.

Frankly, the government did everything possible to make the Americans as well as the world doubt its intentions. Its very election was suspicious to say the least. It handed over millions of dollars from the consumers to the energy industry. It started reducing civil rights protection, among other things against racial profiling. It strongly promoted a star wars arsenal nobody else believed in. It started isolating the US from the East and from the West, not respecting important treaties regarding the security and environment of the planet, which the rest of the world agreed upon. The Three hundred dollars handed out to the tax payers would not have been sufficient to make up for all these terrible mistakes.

The tragedy of last week is being utilized to try to change this situation overnight and to rally the people behind the very ideas the people clearly rejected. Including now: the needs of the war industry to use the opportunity to test new weaponry including neutron bombs.

At the cost of mankind. At the cost of the American people.

Coming from Scandinavia and US residents for four years now, we love the American people. We share their hopes, dreams, and sorrows which are no different from the people of our country, and basically no different from any people on the planet. Our American friends have become an inseparable part of our work as music creators and of our personal life.

And we can truly say: the American people does not deserve to be made hostages, first by faceless criminals with no conscience or humanity, and then by their own government.

Out of our deep love for mankind, the American people dearly included, we strongly support any initiative which will bring this message to the American government.

Please don’t bend to pressure from people/organizations which profit on war.

Find the guilty, whoever they are, and bring them to justice.

But don’t start this war.

Annisette & Thomas Koppel
THE SAVAGE ROSE