»
Archives
»
Corner Pub #2
»
Patriots for Peace
| Corner Pub #2 |
|
Patriots for Peace |
|
|
allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road 
|
What if they're right And Saddam's a threat What do we do To nullify and yet Not create more enemies That hate us still more Not start new wars And more bloody gore What is the answer To hate and fear? What can we do To make things clear? We want every person To live in peace To trust in our leaders And for hatred to cease But if we fight war With yet more hate Will we find a solution Or just seal our fate? When you are angry What do you want? A fist in your face A hate-filled taunt? Or some understanding That makes you see That though things are bad You may START to agree I'm not saying it's easy But with tough love You can take the sleazy And with help from above Bring souls together Who are filled with sorrow Where the heart goes Then the mind will follow Don't deal in hate And sneering threat If we kill one another We'll be filled with regret We have one chance And one chance alone To make the world work When it's gone, it's gone Don't let it all slide Down to a war Don't risk the future That will make us all sore Let's heal the sorrow That lies between us all Build bridges to the others And hear their call We were born as brothers And sisters too Don't hurt the many To protect the few If we have tolerance One to another Then our children's children Will one day discover The world is together And Heaven's in our soul When true PEACE is made And LOVE is our goal Please support PEACE DAY on February 15th 2003. Let us come together and build bridges to a better world. The old warlike solutions of yesterday must go. All they create are NEW problems and hatreds for tomorrow. There is never an easy time to start understanding one another but we have to start somewhere. Why not NOW? if we choose to slaughter in the name of peace and harmony what message are we REALLY sending to the future? If you ever march just one time for any cause please make it for this one and on this day. The future of our children and their children's children may depend upon it... Go in Peace on February 15th, for a new world... [This message has been edited by allan (02-10-2003 07:28 PM).] |
||
| © Copyright 2003 Allan Tierney - All Rights Reserved | |||
Nightshade 
since 2001-08-31
Posts 13962just out of reach |
allan - this is a very profound write. I don't know what the answer is to world peace. It seems almost unreachable. Yet, I pray each night for it and thank the Lord each morning that we are all still here. Heaven help us. Chris "Hope" is the thing with feathers- |
||
|
Joyce Johnson
since 2001-03-10
Posts 9912Washington State |
Allan this is a great piece and so much truth in it. Why do we keep making the same mistakes over and over again? Joyce |
||
|
SPIRIT Senior Member
since 2002-12-29
Posts 1745California Desert |
I can appreciate this post. Imagine! If we could make friends with our enemies we would have no enemies - wonderful thought that, wish I had said that first, don't know who did but great thought. Thank you. |
||
|
allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
Thank you very much everybody. I truly wish this could come to pass. If we don't do something about this soon the whole world is going to overdose on cynicism and there will be no chance left. We mustn't be left in the situation where violence is the only solution left. We are already so late on this. There has been a new world aching to be born since the end of WWII - my parents missed it due to the cold war. We are going to miss it if we build a replacement for that for the sake of the military, military industrial complex and CIA - this time against Islam. There must be a meeting of minds, attempts at communication and understanding. We can't shout threats from opposite sides of the globe because we are coming closer each day - the capacity to inflict damage on each other has taken an exponential leap. We must now communicate, understand each other or many millions are going to die. I feel it. We are on that path. We must get off it. The rhetoric of Bush and Co is headed straight down this path to misery it seems to me... Feb 15 - One chance to say "No..., wait, there is another way." [This message has been edited by allan (02-11-2003 03:55 PM).] |
||
|
passing shadows Member Empyrean
since 1999-08-26
Posts 45577displaced |
what other way? I see none. |
||
|
passing shadows Member Empyrean
since 1999-08-26
Posts 45577displaced |
do you have an answer, allan? |
||
|
allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
Certainly there is another way. It is the other way that Iraqi exiles are saying here in the UK that should be taken. 1) Stop the sanctions and let the Iraqi people get strong once more. Given time they will overthrow Saddam. Look at the overthrow of communism - the people of those countries did it themselves and those countries had far more weapons and soldiers and police infrastructure than Saddam. 2) Pour UN troops and many many more inspectors in there to cover Iraq. 3) Provide development aid and staff to bring the country to realise that we want to help there and in so doing undermine the sick regime that Saddam keeps in place. The Iraqi exiles here are saying that the Iraqi people do want Saddam to fall and that they CAN do it. They DO NOT want the Iraqi people and its infrastructure bombed into a new stone age. DO listen because there are voices calling for another peaceful way. Don't take the pompous and seemingly "easy" path of this "apparently" simple, traumatic and violent solution. [This message has been edited by allan (02-21-2003 03:42 PM).] |
||
|
passing shadows Member Empyrean
since 1999-08-26
Posts 45577displaced |
what makes you think that people want to overthrow Saddam? It seems to me that if it was willed, it would be done. You ever heard the saying "nice guys finish last"? Usually help if offered when people show the desire, at the least, to help themselves. |
||
|
allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
passing shadows, thanks for a post I can finally respond to without feeling I'm ranting!  There was a time when America and Iraq were "friends". There were cordial visits by Rumsfeld and others with wide smiles and handshakes. At that time Saddam was America's man. The US had decided to help Saddam defeat Iran. That didn't happen however, they slaughtered so many of each other that in the end twelve years olds were on the front line - especially in Iran. The US was selling Saddam weapons and giving him support. Then it all went wrong. Since then the US has decided that he must go and that they can't be friends. This is a gross simplification but it mirrors a certain banality in the way American foreign relations seem to be carried out. Especially in these times when Bush states that you are either for or ag'in us. I truly believe in Jaw-Jaw rather than War-War. An enemy really DOES find it hard to fight a helping hand. And the people of Iraq DO want to remove Saddam - we have many Iraqi exiles in Britain and they tell us this. The Idi Amins, Ceucescu's and Saddam Husseins of this world do eventually topple THEMSELVES - they alienate enough people with their isolation and subsequent paranoia that they can trust no one, they reduce to a core and then they are gone. I do believe that the last twelve or so years of isolation and fear in Iraq have helped MAINTAIN him in power. We should go in now in great numbers and there could be a sort of de facto peaceful invasion. Where is he going to turn to. He is surrounded by weaponry - Israel, Turkey, etc. Exactly who is he threatening? If the UN was to send in major numbers of troops and we got aid in there and started saving some of the hundreds of thousands of infant deaths that have taken place due to the sanctions we could really change this thing around peacefully. I sincerely believe that the motivations of the US government are in doubt. They want to prove something. I am not comfortable at all that they prove this something at the inevitable expence of innocent lives. I find this behaviour despicable as does the vast majority of my compatriots. |
||
|
passing shadows Member Empyrean
since 1999-08-26
Posts 45577displaced |
allan, how did it go wrong, the break-up of friends, we and Iraq? Did we help Saddam obtain more power than he could deal with properly? And if so, are we now to blame for his people being in the situation they are in now? What happened? That proves my point, nice guys finish last...we helped, and what did it get us? So should we do it again? Should we just tell him he doesn't have to disarm and hope for the best? Let him go on making weapons of mass destruction and he'll own the world soon enough. Do you want to live under Saddam? If someone in power doesn't listen, what is the use of Jaw-Jaw? I'm not saying I am for war, no one in their right mind is...but the cards are held by more than one country...and I feel like we are being forced into playing the hand....folding is not an option. |
||
|
SPIRIT Senior Member
since 2002-12-29
Posts 1745California Desert |
Seems to me when the hand doing the feeding keeps getting bitten somethings got to be done to prevent its continuing, before the hand is lost. Nice guys more often than not do finish last. No one wants war. I'm on the upside of the downside of my life and as long as I have been alive I would take a bet that there has been a war somewhere going on - that is 7/24/365 for ever and ever. I am not willing to forget those who gave up their lives that I might have the the right to live in a country that honors freedom above all else. Freedom unfortunately costs and the price is immeasurable. |
||
|
allan Senior Member
since 2000-04-09
Posts 620On the road |
passing shadows, what I am pointing out is that your country does not have clean hands. We in Europe are NOT unaware of the dirty arms-selling that America has done around the world. Nor are we unaware of the dirty dictators it suited US purposes to support. But we still hear Americans talking in such naive terms about their governments and that they only want to help the world. Do you actually believe this? It seems an incredible feat of denial to us. Surely you have read the same information as us and read the CIA testimony on these things. And Watergate and how many other dirty areas? And yet we hear the same tired myth again and again: America is a wonderful freedom loving country who is only trying to bring democracy and freedom to the world. The evidence says otherwise - not only the evidence of your own CIA but the evidence of the history books - look at the Contras and the dirty stuff that went down in South America for years. Please read about the US support for the Shah and then Saddam. The US gets involved on the world stage for its own national interests and for no other reason. I wonder who you feel you are convincing when you simply ignore evidence and simply reassert the good-hearted purely humanitarian impulses of your noble leaders. Please, as you say over there: "Get real." |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
