War is not the answer

Dear Editor:

Before we started bombing Iraq, the Roaring Fork Peace Coalition quoted Nietzche: “Take care if you choose to fight monsters that you do not become a monster yourself. If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss will start to stare back into you.”

The corporate media patriotically leaves out of their news that thousands of Iraqi men, women and children have been killed by our weapons and thousands have been burned, paralyzed and maimed. And thousands more have been detained on the mere allegations of paid informants. Now it has been discovered that our soldiers have been physically abusing and sexually humiliating the Iraqi detainees.

We daily mourn the loss of American soldiers. It is time to mourn the loss of and injury to all the innocent victims of our unjust war – American and Iraqi. For the millions who went to see Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” the movie should remind them that Jesus’ message of justice, peace and love did not come with national boundaries.

To justify fighting the monster Saddam Hussein and staring into the abyss, we have claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein killed thousands of people. Other countries with ruthless dictators have weapons of mass destruction and plenty of dictators are killing and torturing their citizens. We invaded Iraq because it is an oil-rich country with a rag tag army and no powerful allies.

North Korea has a ruthless dictator and is developing a mass destruction weapons program, but unlike Iraq, they have a well-trained army, a Chinese ally and no oil. We knew we could not conquer North Korea. We mistakenly thought we could conquer Iraq.

I believe that karma comes back to you in this lifetime, not the next. From recent news stories, it is apparent that karma is coming back to haunt the Bush administration.

We are in an Iraqi quagmire and sinking fast. President George W. Bush refuses to turn over the operation of Iraq to the United Nations not because it is an ineffectual organization. He refuses help because of his pride and because his corporate friends like Halliburton will no longer be able to make their obscene and fraudulent profits.

It is not time to pull out of Iraq, but it is time to pursue a policy that replaces American hegemony with humanitarian and international concerns.

The Peace Jam II at the Buffalo Valley raised $3,700. Thanks to the musicians and businesses who donated their music and auction items. And thanks to all who I saw at the event – past and present elected officials, housewives, students, school teachers and administrators, doctors, nurses, architects, lawyers, pychologists, construction workers, artists and others – for supporting the coalition. With your continued support, we will get the message out that war is not the answer.

Calvin Lee

Roaring Fork Peace Coalition

Carbondale