Who is Planning For Peace?

P2-Planning For Peace envisions a world where nations intentionally plan for peace. Today, peace planning is accomplished under duress of threat of war or economic sanctions. Unfortunately, it seems the nations continue to intentionally choose the “big-stick” way of relating to one another.

In today’s Washington Post, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a conflict with Iran would be “extremely stressing” but not impossible for U.S. forces, pointing to reserve capabilities in the Navy and Air Force. “It would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability,” he said at a Pentagon news conference. Speaking of Iran’s intentions, Mullen said: “They prefer to see a weak Iraq neighbor. . . . They have expressed long-term goals to be the regional power.”

The Pentagon is on top of matters. Our nation has invested billions of dollars in some of the finest war planning and gaming technologies and capabilities to date. What is desperately needed are similar capabilities to plan for peace. Just as war planners are developing courses of action to wage war with Iran so too peace planners are needed to ensure all of the pieces of the puzzle are on the table for conversation. Sadly, we are not yet ready for this capability. Some might say, “The vision for peace is beyond our reach.” To that I say, a vision within our grasp is a vision not worth our reaching for … 

 

It is the Vision Sought that Defines a Life

Vision sets before us a way of living life, and the realization of this vision is the life-long task of the community that begins again and again with each new generation. Vision is the measure of perfection sought and in our seeking we will discover that it is fall down get up again work. This work is the offering of vision that chooses us and provides us the direction and encouragement to continue going on.

 

Without vision to provide direction for our lives we will discover it too difficult to develop the rigor of character we need to live through our “falling-down” times. Without the rigor of character given to us through our obedience to the vision we will soon lack the needed fidelity that must be rooted in our very being. Such fidelity is required to get up again and again.

 

Peacemaking is a vision. It is not a product that can be bought or sold, but the outcome of our journey made under the guidance of a grace-filled director.  Peace is the fruit harvested and eaten along the way of our disciplined journey made together. The grace-filled director that we need to guide us can be discovered in those all important collection of principled rule sets guiding our decision making. 

Forced Feeding of Forgetfulness

I recently finished reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I notice that the reviews are mixed – not everyone liked the book, which in my perspective makes for an authentically good book. What I liked about the book is its “simple-complexity.” Sorry about that! What I mean is that I appreciate the author’s reaching for the margins of life, even if potentially exaggerating, in an attempt to paint a fuller picture of our humanity. Read it yourself if I am not sufficiently clear for you here.

 

I introduce this book as prelude to what I need to write this day. The setting of the story is Barcelona Spain during a time of Spain’s civil war and what the author has to say about the experience of war brings to my thought – the forced feeding of forgetfulness. I take from page 428 of the book this excerpt: Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war.

 

Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war – enveloping whole societies in a forced quietude all the while trying to convince everyone that what has been experienced (seen, heard, tasted and felt) about ourselves and others in our world is simply an illusion or a passing nightmare (my paraphrasing). The author then states: wars have no memory and nobody has the courage to understand them until there is no one left to tell what happened… and this all in the service of future wars because hiding the truth perpetuates the myth of glorious sacrifice.

 

I witnessed this growing up as a child watching my father’s generation mesmerized sitting in front of television war shows (e.g.; Twelve O’clock High, Combat) instead of speaking out from their experiences of the real truth of the ugliness of war. Its as if everyone all of sudden exhales at the end of war – having held their breath for so long out of fear.

 

When war ends it is as if a heavy mantle of collective forgetfulness descends the day the violence subsides only to give birth to a new form of violence more destructive – shame filled silence that allows the cancer of guilt to rot the collective soul of whole societies. In the end, our warriors and those abused by war take the secret (truth) to their graves and in so doing leave behind loved-ones with their hearts filled with unspoken shame.

 

Truth telling and embracing the truth found in historical context is one of the principles of planning for peace. This must be done with care of course. When it is not done, however, what is left behind for future generations is a world based on unprocessed shame leaving the burden of guilt with the next generation. This is why wars force-feed forgetfulness – war needs it to ensure its own survival.

What does the Marketing of Eggs and Peacemaking Have in Common?

Don’t put all your eggs into one basket is the farmer’s wife sage advise. Why? Because along the bumpy road the weight of the eggs can crush those on the bottom or should the basket fall off the wagon you loose the whole lot, I suppose. I don’t know. I’ve never raised chickens nor harvested eggs. What I do understand, however, is that good financial planners always advise you to diversify. Don’t put all your investments in only one instrument of investment – that is if you have the capacity to make investments.

Recently heard a news interview of Rabbi / Dr. Marc Gopin of Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC). He was commenting on Vice President “Dick” Chaney’s visit to Palestine/Israel a week back. I greatly value Dr Gopin’s insights as he often lays his own life on the line reaching for peace in the Middle East. The one thing that resonates directly with me, as it speaks to my own experience, is the statement that our nation uses a single-point solution to all her conflicts – the use of force or the threat of force. I believe this is so because we have placed all our eggs in the one basket called Security. Ever notice how all our politicians beat the national security drum? Or, ever wonder why the only governing document for our relationships around the world is called the National Security Document? Who is responsible for developing our nation’s National Peacemaking Document?

Heard an interview program with Scott Ritter broadcast on KATO Radio (Radio Taos, New Mexico) –Sorry I don’t have a link for you of his book Waging Peace. If you remember, Scott was the lead inspector in Iraq (pre-Iraq war). He has been quite vocal about the Administration’s failed strategy not allowing the inspections to continue. As I see it, protraction in that instance was an excellent peacemaking strategy. Any rate, Scott was asked if the US needed a US Department of Peace. He quickly said: We already have one! It is called US Department of State. He went to elaborate that the vision within State does not allow their diplomats to be who they need to be as ambassadors of peace. Well, that is my take on his comment. Sorry Scott Ritter if I have wrong. Even so, this has a ring of truth to it.

 Thus it appears the US Department of State is the agency that is responsible to draft a national peacemaking document identifying the peacemaking capabilities we as a nation need to invest in – investments needed to advance the cause of peace. This of course will be a threat to our national defense (security) – so will be the argument. My response is this: Putting all our investments into the making for war is the greater threat. You know, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We will become what we invest our lives in.

Never Lose Sight of the Goal

Wisdom from ancient Sanskrit reminds us that necessity changes a course but never a goal. Necessity has surely visited our nation. These past years while helplessly watching our national goals being reshaped in the images of our national enemies has caused me great agitation. It is surely a time that drives me to my knees in prayer. It is unsettling to see the deep-rooted hatred manifesting itself in our national policies – the most egregious being realized by our nation’s violation of its own human rights values. War powers acts of our national executive body seem to be the catch all phrase that allows the law of humanity to be set aside in favor of human brutality.

The brutality that I have in mind is the mindless and yes, heartless authorizations of torture justified under the auspices of war – even though all my escape and evasion training in the military taught me that if captured I could expect to be tortured by a less than human enemy, and that we were to rest with the assurance that our nation would not tolerate such activities.

Thanks to the Justice Department with the aide of a law advisor who is now professor of law with the once notorious peace-activist / non-violence-set-of-values University of Berkley, the policy for torture was not only authorized but rule of law set aside to justify it if it could be done off our national shores.

I once reminded a colleague that our nation survives because we are a nation under law. If we have a Monarch, it is the Rule Of Law so to speak and it seems that now the ordering of our “national universe” has become as fickle as the days of bickering European princes over the matter of ascendancy to the throne. Lost in the battle for them were the very principles that were foundational to their rule. The suffering of their citizenry became the fruit of their self-serving labor.

I served in the military of this fine nation and like so many before me served to preserve the Constitution – the bedrock foundation of who we are as a people called citizens of The United States of America. Many fine men and women paid with their lives as price for such service and I believe they would not see their sacrifice as being on order of the messianic but simply a duty fulfilled to protect the higher ground – our Constitution and the Rule of Law. These are indeed the best instruments representing the ground upon which can stand freedom and security in our world as it is today.

Our national prosecution of the war on terror is responsible for the unraveling of the costly work these holy sacrifices by our men and women in arms as well as diplomats and let us not forget the many non-government persons as well. I opened with the wisdom from Sanskrit. Indeed, new situations demand of leadership openness to change but such times most never erode our purpose under heaven to serve the higher goal. Losing sight of this is to risk the loss of our very own souls and to be remade into the images of our enemies.

May we remember the view held by the framers of the Bill of Rights and later the Constitution that all men were created equal, not simply citizens but all men (and today we still need to include women). We can ill afford to split hairs between what is right and good for citizens of this nation and what is not for others. Not, that is, if we stand for what the founders of this nation so dreamed for us and sacrificed their lives for.