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Wars begin in the
minds of man, and in those minds, love and compassion
would have built the defenses of peace.
U Thant
More than an end
to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars. Franklin
D. Roosevelt (1882 - 1945)
Freedom is not
free. Martin Luther King
Peace
is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of
mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence,
justice. Baruch
Spinoza (1632 - 1677)
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03/31/03
John Lennon had died 22
years ago but his wish of a peaceful world
is everlasting.
If
only we live in a different world, perhaps we would
never see any war. Unfortunately, we are living in a
real world where lunatic leaders, crazy-maniac-killers
and weak people are all living together. In the end,
we got what have read from history and are
seeing now: wars!
In an interview with Aaron Brown from CNN last
Saturday, Chris Dickey from
Newsweek said "Iraqi people don't want to be
liberated. They hate Saddam but they don't like
Americans." Mr. Dickey might be right, but might also
be wrong. If we are playing with semantic, "hate" and
"don't like" are two different things. In fact, hate
means a very strong dislike. Logically, Iraqi people
must prefer Americans than the Iraqi
regime. But logic sometimes can’t explain everything.
The truth lies in
the reality. Nothing is worse than living under a
dictatorial and lunatic regime. Anyone who disagrees
might give a try by living in
North Korea.
Majority
of normal people are dreaming of freedom, liberty and
a better standard of living. And Iraqi people of
course are dreaming of the same things. But dreaming
of something is one thing and having opportunities to
realize the dream is another thing.
The next morning,
Bob Arnot from NBC who was embedded with the Coalition
forces was interviewed by a MSNBC anchor. He said that
a group of Iraqi people, in
Central Iraq, greeted them with smiles and joy. The
next day, on Monday,
Sean Maguire from Reuter wrote that
Iraqis Welcome U.S. Marines in Shatra and on
Sunday
Foxnews’s website displayed a picture where
U.S. Army military intelligence officer gets "five"
from a child in the desert of central Iraq. But there
are also some reports that some Iraqi people are
resisting and fighting against the Coalition forces.
How can we understand this?
Just like people who are living under dictatorial
regime, Iraqi people are all
across the spectrum. There are some who are severely
suffered under their current regime. There are some
who can enjoy lives and there are some who are
exploiting others. So, in which category are most of
Iraqi people?
Many people may
dislike US-Iraq issue, but one way or another this
issue affects, directly or indirectly, the lives of
people around the world. This is partly due to the
highly divided perceptions of people about this war.
One group of people perceives it as a US-UK invasion
and labels the countries, especially the US
as aggressor.
All news they want
to see and hear is the killings of civilians by the
Coalition' bombs. They want their perception to become
reality and eager to wait for facts to prove their
view. There are many media which are ready to supply
them with those facts, especially those which have
labeled this war as a US
aggression from the very beginning. It is simply, as
in the words of
Merriam-Wesbter, “a
forceful action or procedure especially when intended
to dominate.”
The other group of
people perceives it as an operation of Iraqi freedom
and view US-UK as liberators. All news they want to
see and hear is the joyous faces and smiles of Iraqi
people and the minimum casualties of both the
Coalition and Iraqi civilians. They want their
perception to become reality and eager to wait for
facts to prove their view. There are many media that
are ready to supply them with those facts, especially
those which have labeled this war as an operation
Iraqi freedom from the very beginning. Although they
realize that there must be some civilian casualties,
they are delight when they see some Iraqi people are
happy with this war. It can simply be summarized in
the words of Martin Luther King, “Freedom is not
free.”
What about the soldiers? In a short interview to the
embedded journalist who asked a US
soldier of what he thinks about the war, the soldier
replied that the war is to liberate Iraqi people and
to keep his country secure so that people back home
can enjoy freedom and liberty. On the side, when an
Iraqi who is living in Jordan and planning to cross to
Iraq was interviewed by a journalist said that he is
going to fight for the freedom of his country.
Again, the truth lies in the reality. And as the
saying goes, “there are two sides to every story,” the
truth also lies in between two different stories.
Due to the complexity of the problem, it is too early
to know the truth at the moment.
So when will we
know the truth? Sooner or later, it will emerge and
people should start re-evaluating their position and
perception of others.
My concern now is
not entirely about this war, but what would happen
in the post war? I
am afraid that people are not ready to accept the
truth. I am also afraid that hatreds will grow like
mushroom and spread like virus. Some sincere anti-war
protestors have coined that before. They are afraid
that this war will trigger more terrorism. To reject
such argument, the proponents of the war argue that as
long as dictatorial regimes support terrorism and as
long as governments and public around the world do not
confront terrorism decisively, terrorism will continue
to pose problem to the international peace and
security. Perhaps this is not a perfect illustration:
Imagine if police launch an operation to destroy an
organized crime. Some people protest that saying that
the operation will only trigger revenge from (other)
organized crime. It sounds like a bad story, doesn't
it?
Unfortunately, that's the world we are living in.
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