The War IN America

Donmiguel was the sixth child slain in the District this year and the 30th since January 2004, a spate of deadly violence that has concerned and outraged city officials and neighborhood groups.

For those who don't know, six-year old Donmiguel was found dead in a bathtub full of water, his hands and feet bound and a pillow over his head last week in a DC ghetto. His mother is the prime suspect, and the evidence indicates that she will be found guilty if they don't use the mental excuse. Needless to say, the father of Donmiguel is different than the father of her other child, who is 11 months old.

Our cities are warzones. Instead of dropping bombs on desert lands, why are we not trying to win the war at home? Why aren't those groups like "Focus on the Family" focusing on the family problems in our black communities instead of spending all of their time and money bashing gays? Why don't those mega-tax-exempt "churches" spend some of those millions of dollars a year on doing their Christian duties rather than building stadiums for services and paying their leaders CEO salaries? How about helping to change the culture of irresponsibility, of sex on demand, of deadbeat fathers and crackhead mothers in black communities? Why not address the issues that cause people like Donmiguel's mother to kill her child?

This country needs dialogue about the real war, a war in which kids are gunned down every day. EVERYDAY dozens of people are murdered in this country for senseless reasons. Why is this different than insurgents in Iraq killing people? The soulless, evil bastards who murder in cold blood in this country are no different than someone who sets up a car bomb in Iraq, or maybe they are worse, because the insurgents think they are fighting for a cause. How many deaths in DC alone are attributed to the raining of bullets from the darkened streets of despair? In 2004, there were 426 homicides in the DC area, including Prince George's County. In 2003, there were 478. So far in 2005, there have been about 200 in DC and Prince George's County alone.

Remember Clinton's focus on crime? He achieved great successes in cutting the crime rate in this country. In DC alone, more officers on the streets and more money in the police department coffers contributed to a substantial reduction in homicides in the District. The assault weapons ban, which the gop Congress sought not to renew much to the chagrin of the people who live in DC and want the ban (such is the life of those who live under taxation without representation), contributed to this decrease.

Gun violence aside, the death of six-year old is a tragedy. It is unfortunate that our gop leaders chose to create more conflicts than to fix the ones happening in our own country.