Good Morning Thinkers!

Perhaps We Should Try Creativity

At the end of his last blog post about why he joined the war in Iraq, Mark Daily asked his friends to, at least, wish him good luck even if they did not agree with his decision.  It's too late to wish him good luck since he and three of his comrades were killed by a roadside bomb on January 15th.  But, it's not too late to appreciate his decision and the obvious thought and passion that went into making it.

All of us who have grappled with our own views on this conflict know that there are no easy answers.  And, perhaps that's the thing that disturbs me most:  our politicians seem to act as if it were easy.  This administration acted as if there were a clear cut mandate and need for war in Iraq and marched forward before the raw pain of 9/11 could subside enough for us to make a reasoned decision.   Now, with the pendulum of power and public support swinging the other way, the call for ending the conflict and pulling out seems equally abrupt and possibly hazardous.

The decision to enter the war was clearly a crisis of creativity -- because we couldn't think of a better way, we did the same old thing ... and then wound up doing it poorly.  The losses are staggering not only for us but for the Iraqi people and perhaps the entire Middle East and the world as this cancer of violence increases and spreads.  But, will Iraq and the US and the rest of the world be served better by staying and surging, by our immediate withdrawal or by a new possibility that we haven't had the time and will power to think of yet?

If Congress ... and the rest of us ... could put aside our blame games and come to this highly loaded decision with an open mind and a clear commitment to serving the world rather than any of the myriad of special interests that make up this complicated mix, maybe we could find our way out of this mess in a way that would allow all of us to be proud of the ending, even if the beginning of this conflict has been forever tainted. 

If, like Mark Daily, each of us could dig deeply into our own beliefs and listen carefully to the thoughts and beliefs of others, perhaps we could find a better answer to the incredibly complex question of Iraq.  That would be one way to honor the sacrifice that Mark and thousands of other young men and women on both sides of this conflict made in the hopes of serving their countries.

You can read Mark's words below.

Peace Plan

I recently came across this Peace Plan by Eddie Greenberg and it was so reminiscent of an earlier poem of mine, I wanted to share both.  Here's Eddie's plan (written a few years ago):

A Very Different and Alternative Peace Plan for the Holy Land:

Sharon, Arafat and Bush should be forced to sit in a circle in the middle of which is a large pile of dead Israeli and Palestinian babies.  They should sit in silence for 8 hours witnesssing what's before their eyes.  If no peace comes as a result of this experience, then as far as I'm concerned, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and The One have "left the building."

My "Recipe for Ending War" is attached here.  Download recipe_for_ending_war.doc

Nature of the Human Species

Thinking that war is inevitable makes it so.  Thinking that the human species is naturally aggressive and prone to violence supports that idea that war is inevitable.  But what if we aren't the warlike, violent creatures we think we are?  In 1986, a group of scientists issued a UN statement that says, in part:

IT IS SCIENTIFICALLY INCORRECT to say that war or any other violent behaviour is genetically programmed into our human nature.

IT IS SCIENTIFICALLY INCORRECT to say that in the course of human evolution there has been a selection for aggressive behaviour more than for other kinds of behaviour.

So, what if war really is just a failure of imagination? 

The full statement is included below.