A review of history reveals the misconception of war

KENNETT, Mo. -- We Americans, thank heaven, are a trusting lot, traceable perhaps to an endowed conviction that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, qualifying it as a part of the more or less basic beliefs of all humans.

More often than not, we believe what we hear or read, and the higher the source the more believable it seems. A police officer's accusations are more believable than the emotional denials of the culprit he has arrested, while a national leader's words are more believable than the trash that comes from the mouths of hate-radio commentators.

To accept without question the word of all observers with the same credibility is folly, if not madness. Assurances are given without a price tag, and relying equally on their validity is all too often a mistake.

In the past several weeks, we have witnessed a full season of these assurances, starting with denials from America's present No. 1 enemy, Saddam Hussein and his hand-picked government, that Iraq has not been preparing for another war and has chosen not to stockpile deadly weapons for use against the United States, its friends in the Western Hemisphere and Israel.

Indeed, those nations that have supported the United States contention or have defended the right of the Israelis to defend their right to exist and be free of terrorist attacks have been the targets of Iraqi scorn and hatred, although such belligerence has not been limited to just one Arab nation but a whole multitude who hold equally aggressive hatred against their common foes.

Indeed, this opposition has continued to increase to such a point that Western leaders have been "corrected" by their Muslim detractors for their use of such words as "crusade" and "human rights."

President Bush has been forced to choose his words carefully when addressing any misdeeds in the Middle East, which has become the latest entry into the politically correct climate of world diplomacy.

These grammatical impasses have brought us to our nation's once-again entry into armed conflict with the designated enemy of the day or year, but certainly not the decade since U.S. and U.N. troops have been forced to defend human freedom in other areas of the world since the end of the Gulf War, risking American lives in Europe, Africa and the Far East. If war is the only recognizable path to peace between nations, then the evidence of its efficacy is flawed.

Peace is not really won by the use of heavily armed troops, as witness the scores of conflicts that remain vulnerable to further violence around the globe.

We are already been promised that Washington's concern and attention will be diverted to the irascible North Koreans as soon as the present battle in Iraq is settled, while being warned that violence is once again brewing in the nation where American troops were last deployed: Afghanistan. There has been no shortage of aggression among neighbors for untold chapters of history since hatred and violence are preserved and nurtured for generations. Mankind, it seems, is convinced the only path to peace is death and destruction of the enemy.

Three years ago, as the campaign for the presidency was first starting, at least two candidates, one in each party expressed views similar to those espoused above.

One was the candidate from Missouri, Sen. Bill Bradley, while the second was the Governor of Texas, George W. Bush. Both stood out among their opponents by declaring they would pursue diplomacy in resolving foreign conundrums rather than dispatch U.S. troops into regions that could only be identified by searching ties and support.

Only one of the candidates survived the campaign and so there was little meaningful discussion -- and certainly no national agreement -- on how America might provide leadership in advancing the cause of freedom for the downtrodden and dispossessed.

The reversal of George W. Bush should not be surprising to anyone who has followed history for the past two centuries. Time after time, wars have been created by broken promises, as witness Franklin Roosevelt's pledge to pursue world peace and Lyndon Johnson's expressed keen interest in ending the war in Vietnam.

History is littered with the broken promises of peace, and the excuse to reverse these pledges has usually been the appearance of crazed tyrants in a troubled spot around the globe, with sufficient evidence to indemnify the national leader.

Now we are told that Iraq's failure to disarm and its leaders' refusal to flee office are sufficient reasons to place the lives of thousands of brave young American men at risk while ignoring the majority voice within the United Nations -- which the United States created as the "best and only" choice for pursuing world peace after World War II.

Not only have we ignored the majority will of the United Nations, we have said it will not be allowed to play any role in rebuilding a destroyed Iraq. That decision, made by presidential fiat, should be re-examined as soon as the fighting dies down in Iraq and as soon as the United States can again assume a meaningful leadership role in the world peace organization.

Any opposition to the presently pursued U.S. policies is being pictured as unpatriotic, a strange divergence of logic since the only counsel for saving lives is an end to killing and peace. We shall not have that until the conflict in Iraq is over and America has been designated the winner. And this will not come about until too many American lives are lost and too many innocent noncombatants in Iraq are destroyed.

The ravages of war are fearsome, and, at some point after the last shot has been fired in Baghdad, the United States will have to confront the tragic and unfortunate folly of pursuing policies that promise peace but never deliver.

Jack Stapleton is the editor of Missouri News & Editorial Service.