You can choose compassion instead of war

To the editor:

I watch the news in disbelief. Seemingly sane men report how many missiles and bombs would be dropped on Baghdad. Many hundreds. Daily. Day after day. This is a city of five million people, people like you and me.

Then they go on to explain what Saddam Hussein will likely do in retaliation: purposely explode all the oil wells (which will burn uncontrollably for months) and use his arsenal of chemical weapons.

What? Are they out of their minds? What are the leaders of these countries thinking? And how many of us truly agree with this course of action?

Don't delude yourself into thinking a war of this description will not affect you here. We will all be intimately affected: dwindling, tainted food supplies, fuel availability, your children's health. Civil liberties will be lost and handed over to a police state.

You can do something to change this that will result in a major shift of consciousness. Choose compassion. Believe it. You and your family, friends and associates can actively choose compassion. Meet and discuss it. Pray about it. Make it a personal reality, and you will see it manifest as a physical reality. The choice is always yours.

DEBBIE NAETER

Cape Girardeau