Western Carolina Peace Initiative
A Presentation by John Womack
A speech delivered at the
Western Carolina Peace Initiative
Western Carolina University
February 28, 2003
by John Womack
Photograph Courtesy Thomas Rain Crow
Friends, I salute you for standing out here in this cold rain and making an important commitment for democracy and world peace. Today we seem poised at a great turning point in world history and we watch together in awe as great energies sweep across our country and the world. Problems seem to create more problems and we all know that something has to be done, yet many Americans are uneasy with a constant focus on war as the solution to any of those problems. Quite literally, issues of heaven and hell are being secretly decided in Washington, D.C., and the people of the world have not been consulted, and have not been listened to. Well, this is our response!
First, congratulations on the name you have chosen: the Western Carolina Peace Initiative. I applaud your important emphasis on "peace" rather than war. If someone is antiwar, they are tied to a war, and on some level they need a war so they can continue. But if you work for peace then you have a different objective, a different focus, and will build and serve a different agenda. In some ways it is too bad the Vietnam antiwar movement dispersed, but they were not able turn their great momentum into a force for peace. The message we learn from their victory and subsequent dispersal is that a lack of a war is not necessarily Peace. But those antiwar people of a previous generation did their job well and they prepared the ground for those who would follow them. Now, it is our job. Understand this: we are not trying to overthrow our own government - or any government for that matter. The only "regime changes" we seek are those that take place through peaceful and legal procedures. What we are saying by gathering here today and tomorrow, and all those other tomorrows yet to come, is that: War Doesn't Work! War is no longer a legitimate way to solve problems! Our message becomes simply this: We Must Find Another Way!
Let's be fair about it, we are not rejecting war out of hand. We are not faulting war on some theoretical concept, but on absolute empirical proof. We have tried war; we have tried and tried and tried again - all of us are guilty, every nation - Americans have tried especially hard to make war work. We gave it our best shot - and it still didn't work. We have fought everybody in the whole world: the British, the French, Germans, Russians, the Spanish, Mexicans, Chinese, Iraqis, Iranians, Koreans; we've fought Japan, Italy, Panama, the Philippines, Cuba, our own Native Americans, the black slaves and Asian coolies we imported to do our dirty work for us, and we've fought each other too. Forgive me, did I forget Vietnam? No, I will never forget Vietnam. I served three combat tours over there and it is a part of me still today and will be for the rest of my life. By the way, it didn't work either.
The war we face today in Iraq is not a preemptive war. That occurs when two belligerent nations face each other with armed troops and one of them strikes first because they think the other is about to do the same. That is how a large number of wars do start. This war in Iraq is not a preemptive war, it is an elective war by a powerful military force against one too weak to resist; it is a "war" of opportunity that is being promoted by some in our administration as a great "adventure," our president has even called it a "crusade." It is not a war we "need" to fight, it is a war our president wants to fight. It is a war of domination and imperial conquest. We have inspectors present on the ground in Iraq currently disarming the country we are preparing to attack. It is a cowardly assault on a nation that poses no real threat to us. It will not be a war with Iraq, it will be a war in Iraq. We hear about "shock and awe," a "tactic" that will scare the Iraqis into peace. The real message though, will not be for Iraq, but for the rest of the world. Last time that happened, it was called "blitzkrieg." That one scared the rest of the world so badly everybody united together to fight Germany, and six years later Germany had lost 3.5 million troops and 3.8 million civilians; their ports, autobahns, and railroads were gone. Many of their great institutions of commerce, education and religion were destroyed and their survivors were totally at the mercy of the four nations who had taken their country away from the German people. Blitzkrieg was bad; Shock and Awe could be worse. Our leaders speak of "collateral damage" and sadly shake their heads, they appear to worry for a moment about all those children who will be "left behind," then they brighten up and go forward, possibly now thinking about the "collateral profit" that will fall to them and their families from this war; important people these American rulers are, associated with international giants of corporate and imperial enterprises whose brand names are as familiar as family to those who give orders from the Oval Office.
Today, the world confronts another despicable dictator, one not unlike Hitler and those many other despots who will always haunt history. This time his name is Saddam Hussein. The difference today is that the U.N. is here. We, the people of the United Nations of the World have Iraq surrounded, and our inspectors are at work in his country destroying his weapons. Charges may be brought against Hussein, he may be indicted and tried as a war criminal either in person or in abstentia. It is said that he is "evil," and the charges against him are awful, so give him his days in court! Want to impress the rest of the world? How about that for real Shock and Awe? And how's that for sending the right message to the right people! And think for a moment how it could have been if the League of Nations had been there, on the ground, destroying German weapons in the 1930's. Think of the difference that might have made. Perhaps we could have gotten rid of Hitler and prevented the Second World War! Perhaps such a disarmament could have saved 64,000,000 people from being killed in the hatred which followed. The League of Nations was ineffective though, because of the United States. Even though the League was created largely by U.S. efforts, our senate refused to ratify the treaty because of political reasons, and the League functioned under that great disability until it was terminated in 1946 to make way for the United Nations.
Perhaps the most important aspect of our opportunities today is that such options have never existed before. Not that every nation is ready to lay down its arms, we are far from that, but at this moment the great military and political powers of the world could unite into a great force for peace that might include France, Germany, Great Britain, the United States, Spain, Russia, China?, Japan, South Korea and others too. Many issues would remain to be resolved, many fights would continue to flare, but if the UN worked for peace using the resources of those nations just named, it's influence would be immense. That is the prize for which we work today, and that prize is slipping out of our grasp, not because of Saddam Hussein, but because of the United States! Our president now stands alone as the most powerful man who has ever walked the face of the earth, and he sometimes seems intent on using the power which belongs to the American people for the secret purpose of a very narrow right-wing group of extremely wealthy people.
Yet, the force that confronts the United States president is more powerful than he. That force is the people of the United Nations of the World who are forming together as one nonpolitical body, not going over the heads of our own governments, or discarding our governments, but working together with each other to fulfill the higher purposes for which each of our governments were instituted. We are calling our elected officials to an accountability for their actions, not seeking perfection or infallibility, but honesty, integrity, and devotion to our common ideals. We are affirming that Peace is a right of all people, and that none can have Peace unless all have Peace. We don't have to slide back down that gory slope into the pit of war again! Peace is possible today, but people have to make it happen. Our president says "We gave peace a chance . . ." then he pauses, raising his eyebrows and clenching his fist, the glare in his eyes implying that peace didn't work. But Mr. Bush, Peace is more than just a game of chance, it needs a home, a place to grow, somewhere it can be cared for, watered, fed and cultivated. It needs to be protected and cherished and it needs to be shared. Too many times people work hard for war, spend money for war, train young men and women for war, are always ready to fight, and then will give peace just "a chance." While wars are caused, peace is left to happen by accident. If we are ever to have real peace it will have to be wanted, prepared for, paid for, trained for and we will need specialists who can become experts in the arts and sciences of peace. Impossible? Not really. What if we did create a Department of Peace in our national government? Just started it off and gave it a place to grow, supported it and shared it? We might find a miracle there someday, instead of just more consequences. How do we get such a radical thing started? It really begins at home, right here at Western Carolina University, in Sylva, Dillsboro, Cullowhee, Franklin and the other small towns of our great southern mountains. Peace is not like a game of chance at all, it's more like planting a garden, or raising a child. Peace must be caused to happen.
Peace will not be handed to us by our government. In order to achieve Peace, we must want it enough to work for it, plan for it, and strive for it. We may have to seize that right in the same manner as the Suffragettes did in the 1920s, as Ghandi did in the 1950s and the Civil Rights workers in the 1960s. There are people who profit from war. They are rich and they possess much power and have influence in the highest levels of all governments, but they always have to work on hidden agendas and invoke false issues like patriotism, nationalism, glory, and emotional appeals to base instincts - all of which are aimed at the common fears of people. They try to divide people into groups and pit them against each other. Increasingly, we members of the world community realize that those unimportant divisions of mankind are neither significant nor dangerous. We must make our government leaders understand that war is no longer acceptable. Only then can we experience the joys and cares of Peace.
Peace will not be a state of endless bliss; it is always a balance between different forces. It will be messy. It will require hard work and will be frustrating more often than it will be fulfilling. Only when war is no longer a valid or legally accepted way of solving problems will all nations be willing to engage in the vexatious, frustrating, and often confusing balancing act of making Peace happen, and treat Peace as if it were really important. But the prize of Peace is a double prize. The first prize is that Peace will give us all those things for which we fight wars, and which war, by its very nature, also prevents us from obtaining. The second prize is the absence of war. Remember this: War kills, it is not a game like Mr. Rumsfeld sardonically implies, it kills; the people it kills don't come back, except maybe as ghosts - they don't raise their children or work for a better world. Almost every single person killed in war is innocent of any significant crime or error. Our president says that getting rid of Saddam Hussein is worth any cost, Does he mean that to include up to 100,000 Iraqis - some 99,992, of whom, presumedly are innocent souls? Maybe they don't "count" in some fundamentally apocalyptic way since they are Islamic, not Christian? Mr. President, you haven't explained that very well. Those who suffer most in any war are always the children. Children get killed in combat, they get injured by falling things, they get run over and run down, they become sick and there is no medical help available. One might shout out "No child left behind!" for a campaign boast, but in war that is a savage joke. Children get lost all the time and they are always left behind. Some die of hunger, some from lack of care, or a broken heart, some are actually scared to death. Many who do survive are raised by those ghosts who haunt such places, and they grow through childhood quickly and become terrorists with enough hatred in their souls to give their life to kill anything.
Finally, we are the first people in history to know that we live on a planet that is dying. We need to spend some time with our lovely planet and care for it with love in its days of its last, great sickness. Perhaps if we can end wars and find ways to live together, we can share not only Peace but even find ways to heal our planet together.
Friends, I salute you! Your work is important and your cause is the most noble in all of history!
Namaste.
