Because you cannot start wrong and do right, the Administration lacks the ability to end the Iraq occupation.
I cringe every time I hear, “peace process.” Peace is not a process; it is a state of being. It is not an absence of battle — it is unwillingness to do harm. The Bush Administration, populated with those devoid of this value, cannot bring peace.
A truce or a cease fire is neither the goal nor a victory. A truce is a temporary interruption of a country’s emoting using the symbols of hostility — bombs, missiles, tanks. Neither a truce nor calls for understanding and tolerance will suffice where peace is concerned. Tolerance is a thin cover for prejudice. It presupposes that one “tolerates” another’s affronts, wrongs, or worse, their inferiority.
True peace comes only when there is no longer an “us and them” distinction. When we fail to embrace everyone as part of the whole, the exclusion of any will breed discontent — the incubator of hatred — the destroyer of peace.
Bush can neither end the occupation of Iraq, nor end the terrorist threat because he does not understand the true nature of peace, nor that you cannot start wrong and do right. The Administration, while proclaiming its religious imperative, will not look to the moral compass that points to peace.
