“…Let the President answer on high anarchy
Strap him with AK-47, let him go
Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil
No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal
If we don't serve our own country we're patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes
They've been swiped, washed out and wiped,
And Replaced with his own face, mosh now or die"
— Eminem, “Mosh”

There’s a tidal wave rising of discontent among the younger generations.

Despite the corporate media’s Extreme Makeover of the daily, horrific disasters in Iraq, a storm of rebellion is growing from inside the military and all across America. Young people are realizing the shameful reality that they’ve been hoodwinked, bamboozled. The Bush administration orchestrated the theft of a country in the name of freedom and democracy.

Rumsfeld continues to repeat that they are making progress in Iraq. And yet, everyone knows that Iraq is the very definition of chaos. Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died, mostly children, from Bush’s “theft of Iraq.” They thought it was going to be like stealing candy from a baby, a “cakewalk.” Ten thousand U.S. soldiers are maimed for life and nearly 1,200 and counting have died.

Young men and women are being used as ammunition for the Oil and Defense corporations, like Halliburton. As Eminem put it, “No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil / No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal.”

They’re waking up. And they have a message for this Corporate-Diebold-President, the only candidate in history who had to rely on cheating machines for the Presidential debates and for his votes: FIGHT YOUR OWN DIRTY WAR.

When Rumsfeld basically told our troops that it doesn’t make any difference if they have protective equipment or not when explosions annihilate their vehicles, he was essentially telling them to get out there and do the job, regardless of poor equipment. If you die you die. So what? Let’s keep in mind that this is a man who ordered the practice of torture. Rumsfeld is a cold, calculating machine. There is no soul behind those black-metallic eyes.

Rumsfeld’s remark was the most offensive and unsympathetic commentary a White House official has ever declared on record in this country. We all know what those soldiers were thinking: “Yeah, Rumsfeld – let’s see YOU patrol the territory, Mr. Big-shot. Let’s see YOU put your life on the line.”

Our soldiers are confused about their objectives: they don’t know why they’re still in Iraq when they accomplished the goal of removing Saddam, when they know that Iraq was never a threat to the United States in the first place.

Michael Kinsley argued, "If the decision makers of society—politicians, business leaders, and so on—had children at risk, a war would be a lot less likely." I’ll go a step further: If national and international leaders, corporate CEOs, and elected politicians knew that once they declared war or voted for war, they would, by law, have to serve in the battlefields, predictably, that would end all wars around the world.

If Bush wants to be the patriot that he claims to be, he has to do more than wear a tiny American flag in his lapel. If Rumsfeld is determined to send soldiers out into deadly and explosive territory without the necessary protective equipment, then it’s time for Rumsfeld to practice what he preaches: If he votes for war, he goes to war.

And while we’re at it, let’s send Cheney and his family, Rice, the Bush daughters, and the CEOs of ABC, NBC, CBS, FOXTV into the explosive terrain of Iraq without their security agents. We’ll insist of giving Murdock full FOXTV coverage in the war zone. L.A. Times photo-op: Murdock in his Marine helmet, a little mud smudged on his face, a cig dangling from his lip, as he rolls out in an open jeep into hostile terrain surrounded by Iraqis who hate Bush and his military occupation of their country.

But first, we better provide plenty of Pampers for when they wet their pants at the first round of explosions…

Jacqueline Marcus’ (jackiemarcus@justice.com) editorials and letters have appeared in the Washington Post, Salon, Slate, CommonDreams.org, New Times, (San Luis Obispo, CA Cover story: “The Politics of Restraint”). Her poems have appeared in national university journals, The Kenyon Review, The Ohio Review, The Antioch Review and many more periodicals. Her book of poems, Close to the Shore, was published by Michigan State University Press. She teaches philosophy at Cuesta College and is the editor of ForPoetry.com.

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