I’m writing because of a recent discussion at a meeting of fellow Democrats.
Have all the wars in the world ever brought true peace? That’s the question I posed at last week to Senators Murray and Cantwell during a Virtual March on Washington. Tens of thousands of phone callers, organized over the worldwide Web, were scheduled to flood The White House and congressional switchboards with their opposition to war in Iraq. Their comments were projected on screens at the organizers’ anti-war rooms during the designated time of each call.
Every situation in life has considerations. The feeling I get here, on balance, is that the United States is positioning itself imperialistically. We can ignore the United Nations if we don’t get our way, deploy nuclear weapons if Iraq uses biological or chemical ones to defend itself, rid the world of any scofflaws, on and on. Would we tolerate demands for a regime change by one of the other eight nuclear powers because they had “proofs” against the Bush Administration? So, our “good” is someone else’s “evil.” Labeling is so childish and does nothing to promote the rule of law. The reason Iraq was allowed to get away with ignoring sanctions for 10 years is that no accountability was built into the process. Now that there is, the United States proclaims an unwillingness to work together with an energized Security Council. This rush to judgment fulfills the West’s need for Iraq as a scapegoat to vent our Sept. 11 anger. And bin Laden still runs free.
I sometimes feel so disempowered by world events. I march, I argue, I get angry, I attend church. What I least remember to do is practice forgiveness in my daily life. I’m reminded of a saying by John F. Kennedy. “There are some things which are real: God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension; so we must do what we can with the third.”
Everett
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