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| war is obsolete |
Our government’s suggestion
after 9/11 that we stock up on duct tape to protect
ourselves against terrorism was clearly an outmoded
response to a vastly misunderstood threat. This is much
like when the government taught our schoolchildren of an
earlier generation to hide beneath their desks to
protect themselves from a nuclear attack. The decision
to wage a global “war on terrorism” is to react in a way
just as obsolete -- and much more dangerous.
Terrorism is a strategy -- not an identifiable
adversary. As we’ve seen in Iraq, rather than defeating
terrorism, the chaos and divisions of war provide
fertile soil for nourishing its growth. This is perhaps
best expressed by the respected international mediator
John Paul Lederach who suggested that going to war to
defeat terrorism is like hitting a mature dandelion with
a golf club -- it only creates another generation of
terrorists.
But war is not only inept at halting terrorism, its
costs are devastating. It destroys the crucial civil
processes it is designed to protect, wastes and ravages
everything in its path and decimates all that we
cherish: our world’s vulnerable children, beloved
families, homes, schools, communities and traditions.
War’s legacy is death, pain, grief, poverty, disease,
starvation and … more war.
And each time we wage war we risk the possibility that
weapons of mass destruction will be unleashed. Nuclear
weapons are currently in many more hands than ever
before and the United States threatens to use them in
any war. The concept of a “just war,” long a mainstay of
our foreign policy, disintegrates when the unjust result
of any war could be a nuclear clash more terrible than
we can possibly imagine.
To continue to use war for our security in these times
is a response deeply rooted in ancient survival
patterns, but rendered obsolete by the destructive power
of modern nuclear, chemical, biological and conventional
weapons. We wage war at our own peril, seeking security
but risking annihilation.
In this time of unprecedented global connection we have
a new opportunity to discover some profound truths. We
know that the fates of all the world’s people are
intricately entwined; that whatever diminishes or
enhances the security and well-being of any one of us
does the same for all of us; that building relationships
is the foundation for resolving our differences; that
within diversity lies the prospect of new, creative
solutions, and that there are many concrete examples of
practical, effective alternatives to the obsolete
behavior of war. |
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