What If?

What if the voters of Washington state, via its infamously cantankerous initiative procedure, were to accept Osama bin Laden's truce offer of a few months ago?

What would such a decision mean in practice? On our end, it might mean that Washington businesses and citizens would be forbidden to aid the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq (and Palestine, too, might as well -- although bin Laden didn't stipulate this in his offer).

So, Boeing's military division would be forbidden from providing materiel and weapons systems that would or could be used to propagate the occupations. Assuming that Microsoft provides software to the Pentagon, it would be forbidden to continue doing so. Naval and military bases would be given the heave-ho. And so on.

Private citizens would be forbidden from paying their Federal Income Taxes until a mechanism were developed allowing the taxes to be allocated only to non-military means.

And for bin Laden's part, he would agree to not launch an attack within our state's borders.

Objections to such a scheme would surely be raised.

First and foremost, no doubt, would be the charge that giving in to terrorists only enables them. Any persons who would bring such a charge are, to put it bluntly, fucked in the head.

First of all, it's incredibly shameful that it takes the fear of getting our white asses blown off to compel us to even consider the withholding of our contributions to the commission of mass atrocities.

Nobody knows how many innocent people we've slaughtered in Afghanistan, but it's well into the thousands. In Iraq, it's likely gone past 200,000 by now. This is in addition to the unknown scores of thousands maimed and tortured, and the future generations still to be poisoned by our toxic weaponry and radiological munitions, and blow up by our unexploded bomb-lets.

We ought, in other words, to consider not taking part in the commission of mass atrocities because, uh, you know, it's not very nice to take part in the commission of mass atrocities. That it'd also save us getting our asses blown off is, to be sure, a nice little bonus. (As is bin Laden's claim that the Muslim world will rebuild the war-torn countries on its own, without seeking reparations.)

Second, the assertion that blowing up tens of thousands of innocent people somehow lessens the threat posed by bin Laden and co. ("puts them out of business", to use McClellan's turn of phrase) couldn't -- if one were to judge by employing the somewhat-arcane mathematical method of totting up the number of attacks before and after the advent of the "War On Terror" -- be further from the truth.

A second objection might be that such an initiative would impose unacceptable strictures on individual liberties. A valid point. As valid as noting that laws forbidding citizens to commit mass atrocities against fellow citizens are a violation of our "liberties". Those on the receiving end of our munificence might note that blowing them up by the tens of thousand simply because one is able to do so with impunity is a violation of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

A third objection might be that a lot of people would be put out of work. It seems highly unlikely that we wouldn't be able to make use of their skills in other sectors of the economy. But if that were the case, with the money saved in unpaid Federal taxes, we could easily afford to train them to perform tasks that didn't contribute to the mass slaughter of scores of thousands of innocent people.

A fourth objection might be that it would invite reprisals from the Bush Administration, which would quickly move to cut off all manner of funding. Probably true. But, again, the money saved by not paying Federal taxes would likely greatly outweigh the money lost.

In truth, passage of such an initiative would probably be tantamount to a declaration of secession from the union. Wouldn't be such a bad thing to do, in this blogger's eyes. Could such an initiative pass, given the implications? Perhaps not. But if placed on the ballot, it would certainly make for some interesting discussions in the weeks and months leading up to the plebiscite.

That alone would surely make it worth the effort.

Posted by Eddie Tews at February 24, 2006 05:36 PM