Guest Book

I normally don't comment much on political issues here, but I want to throw my two cents in here as the Iraq thing seems to be coming up again. Jeanne's well thought out and poignant post has caused me to think even more about the issue. I'm skeptical of anything this president says-every uttrance is a well polled, political choice. I suspect at least part of his eagerness to fight Iraq is to salvage his father's honor, and part to wag the dog because of how his tax cuts have destroyed the economy and are going to lead to the greatest redistribution of wealth up the food chain in history. That being said I don't know that an approach of "people can you feel it love is everywhere" is gonna work. Too many people have already died, and I think the evidence is pretty clear Hussein doesn't have a lot of interest in disarming and he does have an interest in nuclear and biological weapons. Are we sitting here with clean hands-no, but at this point I don't think it matters. I think the negotiations/inspections approach works well with nations who acknowledge there are rules that must be played by. This guy doesn't, regretfully. I saw posted somewhere a quote attributed to MLK, Jr that I've been unable to track down, but that makes sense to me. "When your opponent has a consicience follow Gandhi. When he doesn't follow Bonhoeffer." For those unfamiliar with Bonhoeffer, he is one of the great Christian martyrs of the 20th century. He was a professor of theology at Union Seminary in New York as World War II broke out. He was a committed pacifist, whose book "The Cost of Discipleship" staked out an absolutist position on pacifism. Yet as the war grew worse and the stories of the atrocities against Jews began to circulate quietly he became convinced that pacifism was an inadequete response to great evil. He became involved in the German resistance and eventually was a part of the plot to assassinate hitler in 1944. he was hung at Flossenburg concentration camp shortly before allied troops liberated the camp. Regretfully, I fear this may be a time where the opponent has no consicience and must be eliminated. Failing to do so is, I think, to fail to resist evil. But any sense of eagerness that I sense in some folks is misplaced as well. Just my 2 cents. That and $2.50 and you can get coffee at Starbucks