Peaceful Governance: the Highest Form of Patriotism
Creating a New Model of Leadership

By Adam Abraham

SAN DIEGO, CA (March 7, 2003) – Today our nation and world anguishes over the specter and possible implications of war, versus the possibilities of peace. Sides are being taken, and choices made. Some broadcast commentators have boldly claimed that people who support the growing opposition to war are "unpatriotic," and don't have the stomach to fight for freedom. They assert that we must give our full support to the president in his efforts to oust, if not carry out a "hit" on Saddam Hussein, the sitting president of Iraq. This, from a president who claims to want peace.

This "peace" strategy just doesn't add up.

I support the president's stated desire to have a more peaceful world. However, I've heard every excuse given by Bush administration officials, and by Mr. Bush himself, as to why Saddam Hussein is an evil scourge that must be removed from office, and even purged from existence itself. There's no arguing the point that Hussein has done some pretty despicable things in maintaining his power in Iraq. However we are equally culpable in "aiding and abetting" the "monster" that is Saddam Hussein today. As the political and diplomatic co-conspirators that "created" Saddam Hussein, do we "purge" ourselves, too? Otherwise we're acting as though this matter is as simple as "erasing" a mistake.

Oh, if it were!

"No matter how we try to sugar coat it, we're not going to Iraq with any thought of trying to affect a policy of "tough love." We are going there to kill people and destroy things."

To gain a real solution to this problem, we need to do something other than be a scourge through "checkbook diplomacy" or militarism. Ending the cycle of "scourgism" that we've long been party to will take the intelligence and courage to take measures that bring about a real "win" without causing innocent others to "lose."Otherwise, we may kill Saddam Hussein with our military might, but doing so won't end terrorism, which the president states with some conviction that he wants to do.

I'd like to see the terrorist activity end too. However, the president is still very willing to use terrorist tactics as a means to achieve this end, thereby giving it continued viability by dispassionate, dissociated intellectuals, dictatorial wannabe and megalomaniacs the world over.

Not a good idea.

Anyone who doesn't think that being subjected to thousands of sorties and laser guided "smart bombs" with built-in video cameras isn't terrorism, needs to think again. Just because the people of Iraq -- knowing who we are, and that we're "comin' to get 'em" -- put on defiant faces and hostile gestures when the CNN cameras are on, doesn't make them any less fearful of what may happen. They are likely more fearful of what Saddam Hussein may do to them if they don't show disdain for Americans. However, if Hussein and the Iraqi people were assured that our intent and resolve would not bring them harm, and could even be truly beneficial, we might get a very different reception.

Let's ask the question. Do we really want to destroy Iraq? Do we really want to terrorize its people? Do we want to annex our system of government into theirs? For the vast majority of Americans, I don't think so. But if someone was coming at us the way we are going at Iraq -- on the BELIEF that they may potentially harm us -- we'd be preparing to defend ourselves the same way the Iraqi people are bracing themselves for us. We may be angry at the American leadership for getting us in this mess, but we'd be angrier at the invaders who can be counted on to enter the scene intent on killing and destroying. After all, what gives them the right to enter a sovereign nation and tell us what we can and cannot do? Otherwise, sovereignty has no meaning.

In the same way that Iraq, or Germany, or Great Britain has no right to tell us what we can do, we have no right to tell Iraq how to run its business, even if we don't like it. We can defend ourselves, but not from fear. We must live by the laws that we want others to honor toward us, respecting the sovereignty of other nations if we expect other nations to respect our own. We must do so even if extremists do not.

The United States is not charging into every country that is being run by maniacs, or racked by war, such as North Korea, Rwanda, and, according to the World Bank, over 150 countries in the past forty years. This doesn't mean that we should passively walk away from our concerns about Iraq. It simply means that we take a higher road. That would be an example of leadership.

The fact is that no one has really given non-destructive diplomatic approaches serious thought. The U.N. weapons inspectors are indeed non-destructive, but our eagerness to fight has been as big a distraction to the process as Saddam Hussein's intransigence. But if any country could even afford to affect a peaceful solution, *we* can. The 9/11 tragedy didn't bring our country down. If anything, it unified us, not only as Americans, but as peace honoring human beings.

America can afford to create a peaceful solution because we have a far richer, and more diverse brain trust to draw from than any other country. This is where our cultural and ethnic diversity can work to the world's advantage. We have people who have lived in the culture that the Iraqi people experience, and have the ability to see *both* sides of the conflict with much clearer and understanding eyes and minds than any other. These thoughts are given, not to condone terrorism at all, but to put it an end to it once and for all. That will require renouncing terrorist tactics as a viable means of gaining justice. In this case, it would be correct to say, "No peace, no justice!"

Peaceful, non-destructive approaches could include a face-to-face meeting between Mr. Bush and Mr. Hussein, where our concerns can be stated openly and directly, and addressed to Mr. Bush's satisfaction by Mr. Hussein. Of course, it would expose us to his issues, which we should be ready and willing to listen to, and consider. Thinking that we are "right", no one seriously considers such a dialogue, wanting to save face and all. Yet, we're willing to send men and women to kill total strangers--with our cool remote controlled toys of mass destruction--who don't represent an equal, credible threat except that we say that they do. (To continue, click here.)

Click the graphic below to download free chapter from A Freed Man: An Emancipation Proclamation, then buy online. To get Acrobat (free download), click here. Get three books for the price of one! Order your pre-publication copy of A Freed Man: An Emancipation Proclamation today for $17.95 and we'll ship your order on CD (with electronic (Acrobat) editions of A Freed Man, plus electronic editions of I Am My Body, NOT! and I Am Spirit! (due late 2003). When A Freed Man goes to press, your copy will be shipped at no additional charge.

No matter how we try to sugar coat it, we're not going to Iraq with any thought of trying to affect a policy of "tough love." We are going there to kill people and destroy things. We have the will and the means to be bullies, and we're using them against a "foe" who can't possibly harm us in kind to the devastation we can cause in his homeland.

The President still waxes confident that he'll get the votes he needs (from the U.N. Security Council) to charge ahead to "take Hussein down." That is, in spite of the growing legions of Americans raising their voices for a non-lethal approach -- at the risk of being called "unpatriotic" -- and in addition to recently announced opposition from U.N. Security Council members Germany, France, and Russia.

Let us be clear on one thing: amassing a force of over 300,000 American men and women, behind enough killing power to wipe out the entire population of Iraq's 24 million people several times over, will not bring back even one of the 3,000 lives lost on September 11, 2001. However, it will put the *entire* living population of 280 million Americans on alert. If anyone doubts this fact, please note that it has already happened.

Our government has begun inculcating the collective psyche of the American People with concerns of Red, Orange, Amber, and Yellow alerts, mass inoculations for toxins, and distribution of gas masks, all the while admonishing us to "carry on" with our lives. The real problem is that by adopting this self-righteous position and hardening our foreign policies that have long contributed to the evolution and escalation of this problem, the flame of animosity that smolders between certain peoples in the Middle East toward Americans is fanned, not mollified.

"Peaceful governance disarms hatred born of long forgotten political heartlessness and expediency that rekindles senseless war, after senseless war. Therefore, a commitment to peaceful resolution represents a far greater opportunity for Mr. Bush, America, and for humanity as a whole, than does more bloodshed."

If President Bush really wants peace, then he needs to honor the legitimate call against unilateral military aggression from within his own country and abroad. This doesn't mean that a solution should not be sought, or cannot be found. However, in spite of Mr. Hussein's apparently tyrannical personality (which was just fine to deal with when he was considered an ally), removing the threat of total annihilation -- by *our* "weapons of mass destruction" -- from the table of options, and offering other olive branches in exchange for Iraq's voluntary cooperation, would start a very different conversation. At the very least, our president should publicly be expressing great reluctance -- instead of lust -- at the likelihood of interfering with another country's political/government structure.

Peace *is* patriotic. Indeed, it is the highest form of patriotism that a country and its leadership can aspire to. Peaceful governance disarms hatred born of long forgotten political heartlessness and expediency that rekindles senseless war, after senseless war. Therefore, a commitment to peaceful resolution represents a far greater opportunity for Mr. Bush, America, and for humanity as a whole, than does more bloodshed.

America is a land of abundance. We have an over abundance of brilliant minds that could be deployed on peaceful ways to gain the measure of justice and assurances that we seek, and yet be productive members of the world community. This is not about having everyone "like" us. It is about honoring others even as we honor ourselves.

The abundance that we enjoy in America is born of the freedoms granted its citizens, in ever increasing number. Committing our resources to peaceful means to resolve the situation in Iraq, as well as the issues that spawned the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, will go a long way toward making America, and the world a safer, more peaceful place. Increasing the frequency of rainbow alerts, and the false sense of security that vaccinations and duct tape will save us, only increases fear, depression, dis-ease, and ill-health.

Inspired Thought! To be read over and over (in Acrobat Format), "On Kindliness and Godliness" by Adam Abraham. Read on your computer or PDA. 16 pp. $2.50. (Same day delivery via email.) No shipping or handling fees.

In spite of all the rhetoric about Iraq's potential use of weapons of mass destruction, when we were in direct conflict with them, during the Gulf War, not one biochemical weapon was used against us. But many of our missiles and bombs, smart and otherwise, were launched against the enemy. The SCUD missiles that they presented in their defense were mostly DUDs in comparison. It was like pitting a Ninja force against the Keystone Cops. We have so many more resources at our disposal than does Iraq, in the form of non-destructive options, that we would be remiss in not exploring every possibility. Unlike any other country in the world, we can afford to take the kind of "hit" of 9/11, rebuild the structure, and not strike back in kind. That is what real leadership is. Otherwise, we're only following the example of the terrorists.

It's time we acted like world leaders and actually led… showing the world that we will be guided, not by fear, but by intelligent reason, knowing that the justice that we seek need not be "paid for" in blood.

Copyright © 2003 Adam Abraham All rights reserved

Adam Abraham is author of I Am My Body, NOT! and A Freed Man: An Emancipation Proclamation (Phaelos Books), and is launching the “I Am” video project. Mr. Abraham can be reached via email at adam@phaelos.com, or through his web site, www.phaelos.com.