Another Place, Another Time for Words of War

It’s all beginning to seem familiar. The teach-ins, the candlelight vigils, the marches, the chants, the confrontations.

The sounds and the scenes float through memory like tendrils of smoke, evoking images of other places, other times and other threats to the human family.

What’s going on this time is that we’re organizing for peace again, to stop a war before it starts. The world waits in breathless anticipation to see if our cowboy president turns Iraq into a heap of ashes.

Old campaigners and young first-timers alike are waving no-more-war banners in the faces of those in the bomb-first, talk-later school of thought, who in turn are waving flags in their faces and demanding that we not forget 9/11.

Peace workers gather in increasing numbers, utilizing the electronics that didn’t exist four decades ago, when, after years of trying, they succeeded in helping to end a war--but not until after more than a million people had died.

There were just bullhorns in the 1960s, and a lot of yelling. Now there are fax machines and e-mail and cell phones, humming away in a cooler climate of protest that is forming, as someone has said, “under the radar.”

Former state Sen. Tom Hayden, in the streets back then, is on the podium now. “We will create a new peace movement,” he promised at a rally observing the first anniversary of the destruction of New York’s twin towers. He challenged the flag-waving militarism that followed the attack and warned, “We must not allow the Bush administration to turn Sept. 11 into a national promotion of war.”

It’s a danger, all right. Patriotism fires the spirit to seek righteousness. Tears form. Fists clench. A young man, tense with anger, said to me that we had to get over there and teach them a lesson. Them who? He wasn’t sure, but he knew that Iraq must be involved. His passions ignited by the drums and bugles, he was ready to march, as others have marched before, into the fields of war. Only after he’s there will he discover that, beyond the music and the oratory, lies a reality filled with pain.

I have mixed feelings. If we can believe Bush, and I’m not sure I can, Iraq builds for the day it, and others we call terrorists, will destroy us with a hidden arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. “We waited too long to stop Hitler,” the hawks warn. “We can’t wait that long this time.”

War is high drama in which presidents and generals take center stage. It allows them to strut and posture and wave swords of words, knowing that at least a percentage of the audience will cheer. Ego and vengeance drive the military plot. “Give me enough medals,” Napoleon Bonaparte said, “and I’ll win any war.”

I don’t trust politicians, and I sure as hell don’t trust generals. But if there is truth in the supposition that Saddam Hussein plans to equip a secret army for Armageddon, can we afford to wait? Can we even afford to negotiate with one whose hidden agenda could plunge us into a new dark age? The only way to appease a tiger, it is said, is to allow oneself to be devoured. Are we ready for that?

I’m for peace. I don’t care what it takes. And so are a growing number of those telling Bush to at least wait for an international coalition. Wait for a United Nations mandate. Wait for the UN weapons inspectors to do their job. Wait because rage engenders rage and vengeance creates more vengeance, until it all burns itself out in the smoking ruins of a postwar world. Wait for a year and avoid a century of anguish.

A CBS/New York Times Poll indicates that two-thirds of those asked want the weapons inspectors to go in before any military action is taken. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll shows sentiment for invading Iraq down from 57% in September to 53% today.

As the terrible scenes of the twin towers falling grow distant, we’re pausing to consider the consequences of what we might be about to do. And we’re beginning to ask ourselves how many hundreds of thousands of lives we are willing to lose in a war to avenge the 2,800 who died in New York.

I loathe terrorism and the convoluted logic that says it’s OK to kill children to advance a cause. But I also question the same twisted rationale that says it’s OK to kill the babies of the terrorists in response. The losses are terrible in both instances. I keep thinking of those we love who must exist in a world we have created and how they would fare in any kind of apocalyptic confrontation. The thought is chilling. Disarm Iraq by force if all the proof is in and it’s the only way to stop a madman. But weigh carefully the cost.

Rather the rising voices of a growing peace movement than the screams of the innocents who will suffer if war comes.

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Al Martinez’s column will begin appearing in Calendar next week on Mondays and Fridays. He’s at al.martinez@latimes.com.