Causes

I can't blame Vietnam, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the constant barrage of mortar rounds.
It wasn't the sight of babies set ablaze by napalm.

I can't blame Kent State, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the panic of being in the line of guardsmen's fire.
It wasn't the girl kneeling in horror and rage at what they had done.

I can't blame Charles Whitman, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the random spray of bullets from a maniac's guns.
It wasn't the terror of senseless murder on a college campus.

I can't blame the invasion of Iraq, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the destruction of a country from a maniac's mission.
It wasn't the injection of new terrors in an old land.

I can't blame the attack on the twin towers, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the bodies falling 100 stories to the plazas below.
It wasn't the chaotic implosion of 100 story buildings.

I can't blame the death of loved ones before my eyes, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the absence of people who were supposed to always be there.
It wasn't the emptiness and absence of meaning.

I can't blame the natural and unnatural horror of Katrina, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the masses huddled in ruined buildings, waiting for someone to care.
It wasn't the mud and the mayhem and the price of poverty.

I can't blame the earthquake in Haiti, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the sight of an entire country coming unraveled in squalor.
It wasn't the actors' choices between giving to earthquake aid or buying a diamond ring.

I can't blame the tsunamis on the day after Christmas, because I wasn't there.
It wasn't the concept of hundreds of thousands of people dead.
It wasn't the videos of the sea erasing a century in an instant.

If I can't lay blame, then where does blame lay?
What took my humanity, just took it away?