MORE Than Just a Chance

In 1983, Donald Rumsfeld, a special envoy of President Ronald Reagan, shook Saddam Hussein’s hand as he supported Iraq’s war against Iran by supplying Mustard Gas, Sarin, and other poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague and other chemicals produced by Dow Chemicals and Monsanto. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/04/history-lesson-when-the-united-states-looked-the-other-way-on-chemical-weapons/).

Twenty years later, in 2003, President Bush said, speaking of the coming American war against Iraq, "We gave peace a chance . . ." then he paused, raised his eyebrows and clenched his fist, the glare in his eyes implying that peace didn't work. 

But 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 "consekquences".  How do we get such a radical thing started? It really begins at home, right here and in the other small towns of our country. Peace is not a game of chance at all, it's more like planting a garden, or raising a child. Peace must be caused to happen.

I congratulate President Obama and his team, especially John Kerry, for ploughing back into all this mess and giving peace more than just a chance, and for moving it into the front stage of the world.