Almost 50
years ago, as a young adult, I served as a medical
service officer in the U.S. Air Force during the
"Korean Conflict." That so-called
"police action" was actually a war which
was never officially declared by the U.S. Congress.
Since then, I've evolved into a peace activist. Now,
our current President has deemed it necessary once
again to activate troops of young adults and to order
them to participate in yet another war without an
official declaration from Congress. I've now become a
pacifist.
In initiating his "war on terrorism,"
President Bush said that either you're with us or
you're with the terrorists. I'm sorry Mr. Bush, but
this veteran doesn't accept your simplistic proposal.
Are you saying the terror that is currently created
in innocent civilians by exploding smart bombs, 1000-
and 500-lb. bombs, cluster bombs, or land mines once
laid by CIA operatives fighting Russians in
Afghanistan, is less terrifying than the terror
created in innocent civilians by crash landing
commercial planes into buildings?
My parents, teachers and religion taught me
"Thou Shalt Not Kill." That message has
been passed down to my children and grandchildren.
Are you proposing, Mr. President, that killing one
kind of innocent civilians is morally more acceptable
than killing another kind of innocent civilians?
Despite Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's
assurances that all Afghan women, children and
elderly being killed by U.S. weapons are the
unintentional "collateral damage" of war,
they are no less dead and no less mourned by their
surviving relatives than those killed in atrocities
of September 11th in New York, Washington, and
Pennsylvania. Is Secretary Rumsfeld trying to
convince us that refugees from Lower Manhattan are
more in need than refugees from Kabul or Kandahar,
that American grief is greater than, or has priority
over, Afghan grief?
We all feel this "American grief" and a
deep sense of injustice. But how many Iraqi innocents
will be offered up next if Bush stretches our
undeclared war to cover collateral damage in a new
attempt finally to "get" Saddam Hussein? Is
George W. justified in preparing to finish the
"unfinished business" of his father's
Administration by deploying new or additional forces
to bases or ships within easy striking of Baghdad? In
what way are the sanctions-impoverished citizens of
Iraq responsible for the September 11th terrorist
attacks?
If Iraq is further destroyed and destabilized as we
look for a previously demonized foe, which country or
demon will be next in line to feel the growing
drumbeat against terrorism? Who next will experience
the machines of war designed and sold by the
increasingly profitable weapons industry led by
General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop-Grumman, and
Raytheon? President Bush urges us to consume our way
out of the current economic depression. Given the
boost to our economy by the sale of arms, how much
peace, if any, can we actually afford right now?
With many others, I believe that if we would limit
terrorism, we must address the conditions,
cultural/economic/political/social, which nurture it:
lack of control over and access to resources
necessary for one's life and survival, lack of
inclusion in the decisions which affect one's life
and survival. In short, when others control the
immediate conditions necessary for our basic
survival, one might say that terror is present and
democracy is lacking.
For far too great a proportion of current humanity,
especially for women and children, survival of the
many is controlled by a few who have usurped their
freedoms. In this context, terrorism can be
interpreted as one primary response to the lack of
freedoms available in democratic or, mostly, in
non-democratic societies. The leaders of such
societies may continue their control by re- directing
the resentment and despair bred by exclusion and
inequality against those who seemingly possess the
greatest amount of democracy, e.g., the U.S.
citizenry.
The horrific attacks of September 11th were criminal
acts against humanity. However, they did not destroy
the FBI, the CIA, or other national or international
intelligence agencies. They did not destroy the
United Nations.
Everyone now proclaims that "it's a whole new
world." But I believe that if we wish to finish
this new century in peace, now is the perfect time to
begin by promoting justice. A wise woman, whose name
I have forgotten, once said: "It is not
necessary that justice be swift; only that it be
just!" If it was possible to bring WWII
holocaust terrorists to justice through the Nuremburg
War Crimes Tribunal, and without bombing the
countries that harbored them, why, half a century
later, is it not now possible to pursue legally and
capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist clones
without bombing their harboring countries and
creating "collateral damage" of untold
numbers of terrorized innocent citizens, mostly
children, women, and elderly?
With or without the aid of Congress, Attorney General
John Ashcroft has been busy reshaping the landscape
of U.S. freedoms and civil rights hard-won over the
past few centuries. Not only do these new
restrictions apply to newly-arrested foreign
nationals or domestic prisoners previously jailed for
anti-war or anti- government protests but they also
apply to anyone who is suspected of being involved in
terrorism against the United States. Perhaps even an
essay such as this might soon be considered to be
equivalent to a terrorist act? Ashcroft proclaims
these restrictions as necessary prerogatives of the
Executive Branch. We are "at war," claims
Bush, and "if you want peace, destroy the evil
one." Pope Paul VI said: "If you want
peace, work for justice."
I prefer Pope Paul's direction over that chosen by
Mr. Bush. I refuse to believe that our only
democratic option is to bomb our way to a non-violent
world! I refuse to believe that curtailing our
hard-won civil liberties and increasing government
secrecy and police presence everywhere is the way to
save our democracy!
Bush also cautions us that this will be "a long
war." Isn't such a continuing war, with its
ever-increasing accumulation of human
"collateral damage," likely eventually to
produce more refugees and further increase the
conditions which breed terrorism? Won't compounding
these conditions result in a proliferation of
terrorism rather than an ending of it? What is the
Administration's equation for balancing numbers of
innocent victims killed as "collateral
damage" with the numbers of terrorists killed by
our military weapons?
The more I think about this particular war, or any of
the wars that have occurred during my lifetime (WWII,
Korea, Vietnam, the Seven Day War, Lebanon, Panama,
Grenada, Nicaragua, numerous wars on the African
Continent, the Russian-Afghanistan War, the Gulf War,
Kosovo, Yugoslavia, etc.), the more I detest war and
the spiral of violence it engenders.
As I see my government once again committing to the
prolonged use of terror in my name, the more I become
convinced that war is not the answer and I realize
that I have become more than a peace activist, I have
become a pacifist. I now reject all war, but
especially those proposed as an alternative to
terrorism.
Richard J.
Krejsa is founder of "Passion For Peace,"
co-founder of ECOSLO, and a founding member of the
Central Coast Peace and Environmental Council. He
also is an emeritus professor of biological sciences
at Cal Poly and was a two-term member of the San Luis
Obispo County Board of Supervisors.
