DEMONSTRATING AGAINST THE WAR

A week ago I returned from a trip to Florida, unpacked my bags, and checked my email. Of the over 200 emails one required immediate attention. The one announcing a demonstration against the war in Iraq at the Federal Bldg in Albany NY was somewhat of a pep rally for the big demonstration the following day in NYC against the war.

I saw fellow members from the Buddhist Peace Group which is no longer active as a group yet we are all active in one way or another – we are all engaged Buddhists. And I saw men and women from different groups with whom I protested over the decades against among other things the state sponsored terrorism we exported to Central America, death and destruction instead of diplomacy that occurred in Gulf War I.

Perhaps in my hast while reading the email about the demonstration I never bothered to read all of the text because although the demonstration was made obvious to be “against the war” the emphasis was on “bring the troops home” and worse “support our troops, bring them home”. A position with which I fundamentally disagree because one cannot “be against the war” by demanding the government “bring the troops home” without first assuring that the troops accept their responsibility in this carnage and without petitioning our representatives to hold the executive branch accountable for waging a war based on deceit and deception.

Operation Iraqi Freedom is now documented to be a violation of international law, a violation of the Geneva convention, a crime against the U.N. Charter, a crime against the Constitution of the United States, and above all a crime against humanity for which we are all responsible for including those of us demonstrating that Friday against a war that we were supporting with our tax dollars..

We are who we are today as individuals and a society based on our all our actions in the past and tomorrow we as individuals and the society which we share will be defined by the actions we take today. “Bring the troops home now” fails to take advantage of the opportunity to evolve and sounds a lot like “peace with honor” only a more blatant lie. Our troops can participate in rebuilding what they tore down and the politicians who put our fellow citizens in this position will be held accountable -

Stripped of all the categories and their symbols which make us different e.g. our race, our religion, and our economic standing in the place where we were born – take away all that makes us different and at bottom we share the same nature to born, the same nature to get sick, the same nature to suffer, the same nature to reach old age if we’re lucky, the same nature to endure change, and the same nature to die.

In essence we are all the same, we are all in this lifetime together, our only true belongings are our actions and not one of us can escape the consequences of our actions – as individuals or even more importantly as a society.

Our present course in foreign affairs is a predatory policy that will only create more suffering, more death and destruction to life. Within this humanity which we share is the ability to decrease suffering and value life over death in our actions not just in the rhetoric of our politicians, our preachers, our educators, et al.

Our future as individuals and as a people will be determined by our actions today. Those of us who demonstrate against the war in whatever manner or method have taken a step on a different path to conducting our international relationships but demanding “bringing the troops home” and “support our troops, bring them home” without holding anyone responsible, without holding anyone accountable is a strong indication that we are all too willing to embrace this administrations double speak version of “peace with honor” which will doom us to repeat another sad chapter in our history of empire.