…We have got to learn, or relearn, that you cannot go on killing anybody who doesn’t agree with you. Brutality begets brutality. This can be seen in Israel/Palestine, Iraq; We saw it East Timor, in WW-II in Germany, Poland, France and many other countries. There are as many interests and opinions as there are people. You have to discuss differences, not dictate…
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THE Armageddonists and other doom sayers must be dancing around their altars tonight, as Israel breaks out again, attacking Lebanon in addition to the ritual slaughtering of Palestinians. Now the Bushites are starting to figure out how to turn this into their longed for attack on Iran and maybe Syria. That will, for sure, ignite the entire Middle-East and probably spread like a Southern California brush fire.
When I was a young man, there were diplomats in every government. Some were even statesmen. Their job was to figure out how to avoid war. They talked together, worked out compromises, sometimes brought in third parties to help keep the peace. We had just gone through two world wars, which killed off two generations of youth, destroyed countless artifacts and cities, and squandered most of the wealth of the world on killing machines. With the advent of the United Nations, it was hoped that a new era of diplomacy would eliminate war as both a means and an end. The main problem was that the “Big Five” were not about to subordinate themselves to world opinion and needs, so they formed the Security Council, which had a veto power over the UN deliberations. At the time, the CCCP and the United States were on the council and were mortal enemies. The result was that anything one liked, the other vetoed, so the UN idea was under fire from the beginning and the opinions and hopes of hundreds of nations and peoples had no weight if they were not in tune with the security council. None-the-less, for quite a few years, it worked. When disputes heated up to the firing point, UN Peacekeepers in their white vehicles and blue helmets would put themselves between the disputants to keep the peace while diplomatic negotiations went on. More often than not, it worked.
As the two powers grew in strength and arrogance, they tended to disregard the UN, and often failed to pay their tithe to keep it running. Even so, the various agencies of the UN, UNICEF, UNESCO and others, accomplished miracles fighting disease, poverty, and hunger.
We are now on a planet with one “Super Power” (SP) which says the only diplomacy needed is a bigger stick and the willingness to use it if someone doesn’t toe the line. Its contempt for the UN and the rule of law has effectively emasculated it, which then increases the hubris of the SP. As other nations see the apparent failure of the UN to deal with the SP, they then start to emulate the SP within the limits of their own ability. This leads to brushfire wars, more cruelty, more hunger and poverty, and more governmental arrogance.
I don’t know if the UN could be reconstituted again after all the damage done to it, but if it fails, it is still a pattern for another effort. What is sure, today, is that the current philosophy (?) of kill first and talk later is not working. The only people getting rich are the arms makers and the world is rapidly deteriorating under the load of toxins, weapons, and destruction of arable land.
We had progressed so far under the UN’s charter. Treaties were made to eliminate torture and mistreatment of prisoners. Nations swore to mediate their disputes in the UN before resorting to arms. What happened? When did talk become a last resort, only to be used if aggression failed? How can the world community stand idly by while a major nation acts like a school yard bully? Perhaps this schoolyard bully should be put into Coventry for a while. Be made to sit in a chair for a time out, until he decides to behave and rejoin the community of civilized nations. His bullying friends should join him on adjacent chairs.
We are running out of time. We either have to become civilized again, or we are going to step over the line into another global holocaust, this time with nuclear weapons. I am a nuclear veteran who has seen at first hand the horror of nuclear warfare. Chernobyl was an accident, not a nuclear explosion, and the results of that accident has rendered hundreds of square miles uninhabitable for three to six hundred years. The fallout was registered around the world, and some parts of Northern Europe still have to have their animals and crops monitored for radiation before being put up for sale. Even a moderate nuclear strike would have an effect hundreds of times that of Chernobyl. Hundreds of thousands of square miles would be uninhabitable, the cancer rate would go out of sight world wide. Food would be scarce, transportation difficult, poverty and disease would be even more widespread. Society would break down.
We have got to learn, or relearn, that you cannot go on killing anybody who doesn’t agree with you. Brutality begets brutality. This can be seen in Israel/Palestine, Iraq; We saw it East Timor, in WW-II in Germany, Poland, France and many other countries. There are as many interests and opinions as there are people. You have to discuss differences, not dictate. The greatest teachers in the world have all passed on the one great lesson. It is commonly referred to as the Golden Rule:
‘Do not unto others as you would not have done unto you.’
The best way to do that is to learn to talk, feel and understand. Somehow, we must cultivate empathy, to understand how someone else feels. We must rediscover compassion and try to meet the needs of the millions that right now have no future but hunger, misery and death.
Bring diplomacy back into the human theater, put away the clubs, and abandon this “eye for an eye” mind set. The alternative is to become like Polyphemus, striking blindly at sounds and falling amongst the sharp rocks, injuring nobody but himself.
Written by Stephen M. Osborn, and published at www.populistamerica.com. Stephen is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an “Atomic Vet.” (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist. He welcomes your feedback at theplace@whidbey.net