Give Peace a Chance

By John K. Wilson

All of the blood drives, donations, rallies, prayer services, flag-waving, and candlelight vigils may be good things, but they are done primarily to ease the minds of the living. For the dead, there can be only one true memorial: making sure a tragedy like this never happens again.

It would be a horrible, horrific irony if the United States responded to this mass murder of innocent people by bombing some foreign target and killing more innocent people. It would tragic if the United States followed the demands of pundits to “do something” and piled on more dead bodies.

But peace is a political issue with many opinions. To some, peace requires war. In Orwellian fashion, they want peace through violence. We have tried peace through violence, and it has bred only more violence. Now it is time to try peace through peace.

Congress reacted with speed to offer all of the usual failed policies: tax cuts to help the victims, tens of billions in increased defense spending, and authority for the president to attack anyone anywhere in order to “deter” terrorism. Republicans even crassly called for a capital gains tax cut in order to spur the “war” economy, hoping to turn corpses into profits for their rich cronies.

It is difficult to know how to respond to the assassination of thousands of people. Revenge is a natural emotion, but it is not a useful one. Revenge is what has created the cycle of violence perpetuating violence in the Middle East, each side certain in the belief that it is justified to avenge the latest death with more bullets and bombings.

We have tried bombing, and we have killed, but it has not protected us from violence. We have tried spending billions on missile defenses, but it has not protected us from violence. We have tried assassinating foreign leaders, but it has not protected us from violence. We have tried unilateral action as the world’s self-appointed police officer, and it has not protected us from violence.

All of our wars and our bombing raids and denunciations of our enemies have not ended the violence. Perhaps now we should finally give peace a chance.

Peace cannot be confused with inaction. But it does require the US to work through the United Nations to achieve its aims. Nor does peace mean that force is completely abandoned. UN peacekeeping troops are not unarmed pacifists, but they are devoted to the cause of peace.

If this act of terrorism is to be avoided again, it is only by declaring forevermore that the killing of innocent people for any cause, in any way, must be prohibited. The people who order the deaths of innocents, whether political leaders or terrorists, should be put on trial for war crimes; the countries that protect them should be punished with international blockades that do not prevent food or medicine but effectively undermine their war machines.

Global justice and security, not killing, is the answer. Peace, not war, is the answer.