My father was a captain in the segregated U.S. Army of World War II. My ancestors
made great sacrifices to live in this country. I treasure the ideals that this
nation stands for and lament when we do not live up to these ideals of liberty,
justice and freedom. Indeed, my own work and that of many, many other Americans
is dedicated to holding our nation, my community and myself accountable to our
Constitution and Declaration of Independence and to the international treaties
of law that we have signed throughout our history.
That said, I must say what many others are saying in countless marches and vigils
for peace across this nation the deaths of 5,000 innocent people must be punished,
but there are international laws which our nation helped set up to punish those
behind these deeds. There are alternatives to the bombings. Already four United
Nations workers have been killed by our bombings and surely more innocent civilians
will be killed. And now the administration is hinting that the bombings will
not be confined to Afghanistan. More chances that innocent civilians will be
killed by U.S. bombs.
What we don't seem to understand yet is that this is a different kind of war
than we have ever fought before and conventional war strategies will not only
not work, but may well backfire on us. This is a war of right, not a war of
might. This is a war for the hearts of many around the world, including many
non-Muslims, who have watched our economic policies make Western nations richer
and other nations poorer. A war for the hearts of those who have seen first-hand
our support of tyrants and military governments solely because they supported
U.S. policies while we turned our back on their human rights violations and
their undemocratic ways. This is a war for the hearts of those who want badly
to believe that liberty and justice for all includes them too.
This is a different kind of war because it involves terrorism and those who
are willing to give up not only their own lives but also the lives of innocent
civilians. In the half a century since the end of World War II, the world has
seen a new phenomenon of civilians being killed during wars. Because we in the
U.S. have not seen war in our homeland during this time, we have been able to
ignore this growing phenomenon. In World War I, the ratio of military personnel
killed to civilians killed was 8 to 1. In World War II it grew to1 to 1, and
in the many smaller wars since 1945, the ratio has been 1 to 8. In the words
of Anne Llewellyn Barstow, editor of War's Dirty Secret: Rape, Prostitution
and Other Crimes against Women, "This means that the victims of wars have
changed: the great majority being civilians, they are now mainly women, children
and the elderly . . . Now its chief actors are civilians who had little or no
say about starting the war and who stand to win nothing and to lose everything
because of the conflict."
Wars of terrorists by their very nature are wars against civilian victims. If
we use our conventional wartime mentality and strategies, more innocent civilians
on both sides will perish. I do not believe that the war against terrorists
can be won by crushing the extremists, because it is doubtful that we can destroy
the many little cells around which they are organized. But I am convinced that
we cannot win the war for the hearts of the millions around the world who are
not extremists by bombing their countries and their neighbors. We chance becoming
the enemy we say we are fighting.
In a sermon at The Riverside Church in New York City exactly one year before
his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said these prophetic words: "We
can no longer afford to worship the God of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation.
The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History
is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this
self-defeating path of hate . . . We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence
or violent co-annihilation. We must move past indecision to action. If we do
not want to act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful
corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might
without morality, and strength without sight."