Broad military approach foolish
By Paul Kvinta
Pacifists are not wimps. Nor are they evil, immoral or on the side of terrorism,
as syndicated columnist Michael Kelly ignorantly and illogically asserts - ignorantly
because Kelly clearly doesn't understand the world view and long-range efforts of
committed pacifists; illogically, because Kelly equates the horrific attacks of Sept.
11 with Nazi aggression during World War II.
The differences between these crises and what unfolded in World War II or the Cold
War are vast and obvious. If we fail to understand this, if we view Kabul as Dresden
and bomb the hell out it, expect more awful footage of American skyscrapers crumbling
to the ground.
For serious pacifists, peace is a proactive affair and a long-range proposition,
not something passive and limp-wristed. That's why it's called the Peace Corps. That's
why dozens of nongovernmental development and relief organizations, populated by
legions of pacifists, toil in obscurity around the globe, digging wells, operating
clinics, working to combat economic, social and political injustices. It doesn't
matter which particular government had a hand in fostering those injustices. They
exist. They need to be addressed to create the stability required for peace.
Pacifists want these heinous crimes properly investigated and the perpetrators arrested,
tried and punished. They also want our country to reflect seriously on our foreign
policy, to consider both the good and the bad things we do, and to make changes that
will ensure long-lasting peace.
Pacifists don't need a full-blown war to place themselves in harm's way or to sacrifice
their lives for their country. Kelly should ask Coretta Scott King about that. Or
he should talk to the Mennonites and the Quakers, who regularly dispatch platoons
of "Christian peacemaker teams" to places like Hebron in the West Bank,
where they confront head-on the Israeli bulldozers that flatten Palestinian houses
during settlement-building. Kelly should amble on down to Columbus, Ga., one November
for the annual protest of the Army-run School of the Americas.
As for Kelly's reference to the Nazis, I'll admit, pacifism in the face of Hitler's
war machine was no doubt a tough sell in 1942, as it would be today. No denying that.
(It's funny though: rather than highlight the obscure British pacifists of the 1940s,
you'd think Kelly would have focused the highest-profile pacifist of all time, Jesus,
and his attempts to pitch pacifism to his fellow Jews in 30 A.D., when the Romans
were regularly murdering chariot-loads of Jews. But heck, Jesus is a pretty popular
guy now, so I can see why Kelly wouldn't want to call him evil and immoral.)
But Kelly truly misses the mark when he uses his elementary-school logic to compare
the actions of the Nazis to those of the Sept. 11 terrorists. The similarities pretty
much end with the fact that both groups are murderous thugs. True, as Kelly states,
Hitler did not want the British to fight back. Osama bin Laden, on the other hand,
clearly wants to be hit back hard. He wants America to create as much collateral
damage as possible. That stuff makes for great recruitment videos. Bin Laden loves
jihad. That's what al-Qaeda is all about.
Ethical and moral convictions aside, as a practical matter, wide-ranging military
action as a response to terrorism is just plain stupid. It will cause young, frustrated
men in the Middle East to seethe, thus sowing the seeds of future terrorism. And
President Bush will have a devil of a time holding together a coalition of Arabs
and Muslims if we begin willy-nilly bombing Afghanistan. Fortunately, our leaders
seem to be buying into at least some of this thinking, as they've so far proceeded
quite cautiously.
Ultimately, pacifists want these heinous crimes properly investigated and the perpetrators
arrested, tried and punished. They also want our country to reflect seriously on
our foreign policy, to consider both the good and the bad things we do, and to make
changes that will ensure long-lasting peace.
Pacifists want this because they're patriotic, because they mourn for the victims
of terrorism, and because it's the smart thing to do.
Paul Kvinta is a freelance writer. This essay originally appeared on MSNBC.com.
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