You’re standing amidst High St. and the throng, waiting for what you’re waiting for, when you overhear a conversation between X and Y.

X: We should just nuke ’em.

Y: What?

X: We should just nuke ’em and get it over with. It’d be a lot easier.

Y: You’re an idiot.

X: What?

Y: You’re an idiot.

X: Why? What do you think we should do, Mr. Smarty Pants?

Y: Maybe nothing.

X: What?

Y: Maybe nothing. Maybe we shouldn’t do anything.

X: What? We should just let these bastards get away with this? Are you nuts? I’m gonna tell you what we should do – take every piece of goddamn equipment we got and send it over there until all those bastards are dead.

Y: Oh, yeah? What if it takes five, maybe 10 years for that to happen? You ready for that kinda commitment?

X: However long it takes. Whatever it costs. We can’t let them do what they did and get away with it!

Y: They already hate us in the Middle East. The longer we’re there, the more they’re gonna hate us. We make a big, long military presence over there and all it’s gonna do is make the moderate Muslims pissed off at us and turn the whole Islamic world against us. You want that?

X: Hey, if we don’t stop them they’re gonna keep attacking us. They ain’t gonna stop. Look, they started it. The only reason we’re there –

Y: The only reason we’re there is because the US policy of funding puppet governments and being in their holiest of holy places, trying to play the imperialist for the sake of the almighty dollar, has come back to bite us in the ass!

X: The only reason we’re there, stupid, is because they killed 5,000 innocent people! They attacked us, and now it’s their turn. They gotta pay. How many kids ain’t got fathers now?

Y: And how come a large group of women who lost their husbands, and the fathers of their children on that day, got together to say publicly that they didn’t want us to go to war? They got hurt most. They lost the biggest and still they didn’t want war?

X: Do you think the Taliban are good people?

Y: What?

X: Do you think the Taliban are good people?

Y: Of course not. No.

X: Yeah, that’s right, ’cause they’re an evil group of hateful people. Nobody wants ’em. You see on TV how their own people want ’em outta there? They’re bastards! Look at how they treat their women.

Y: Yeah, it’s almost like these bastards in the legislature, all men, telling women, under punishment of law, what they can and can’t do with their bodies, with their choice, with their lives. Slavery exists in this country too, my friend. Don’t turn this into a moral argument of good vs. evil. That’s just a facade to make you feel better about murder. Good and evil don’t apply. We’re just as evil as they are.

X: What are we supposed to do, huh? Nothing! I can’t believe you. These are evil people. They’re targeting innocent civilians. You said we shouldn’t kill – what if we wouldn’t have stepped up and killed Hitler? What then, huh?

Y: We wouldn’t have had the chance to drop two atomic bombs. Yeah, I see your point about innocent people.

X: You’re unbelievable!!

Y: All I’m saying is that we’re getting ourselves into a bad situation – it’s like a black hole. If we could go over there and take out all of the people responsible, that would be great. But this war on terrorism is a farce. It’s endless.

X: But we gotta try! Don’t you see that? If we don’t, their assaults on us are gonna be what’s endless! You gotta take out Osama, then you gotta take out Saddam, and then anybody else who –

Y: Gets in the way of the American dream?

X: Who shed the blood of Americans, stupid! Period. End of story.

Y: But it’s like you’re trying to rid the world of mosquitos, or bacteria or something – or McDonalds. You take away one, two, fifty, a thousand and there’s gonna be replacements. And by going over there with this huge extended military campaign, you’re only guaranteeing the likelihood that more people are gonna hate us.

X: Then we’ll take them out too!

Y: Oh My God. “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land –

X: What if they killed your father?

Y: I’d cry. And I would mourn him.

X: What if they killed you’re wife?

Y:——

X: What if they killed your wife? And your kids, that ain’t had any chances? What then, Buddha?

Y: Is it right to kill any one, to take another man’s life, to murder him, for whatever reason?!

X: Of course it is!

Y: “… Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing …”

Bob Paschen III is a senior in English. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].