Give Peace A Chance — And A Name

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/10/3096/

Give Peace A Chance — And A Name
by David P. Barash


Now that Congress has failed - once again - to call a halt to Bush’s Blunder in Iraq, conventional wisdom attributes the inaction to political stalemate and the arcane rules of the U.S. Senate. We reassure ourselves, moreover, that everyone wants peace: It’s just that reasonable people disagree over how best to obtain it.

But here is a disturbing thought: Maybe this isn’t true. Maybe lots of people, deep in their hearts, like war. Maybe peace is boring.

This may also help explain why the Bush administration has done such a miserable job of “winning the peace” in both Afghanistan and Iraq, as opposed to its earlier and far more enthusiastic waging of wars in both countries.

Maybe our leaders just aren’t very interested in peace. More troublesome yet: Insofar as those in power find violence especially compelling, they aren’t that different from the rest of us.

snip//

The upshot of all this? The current administration can and should be criticized for being much better at destroying countries than rebuilding them, and - worse yet - for being more eager to do the former than the latter.

“Nature … ,” said Katherine Hepburn’s character in “The African Queen,” “is what we were put on Earth to rise above.”

It may be asking too much for Bush et al. to rise above the “natural” human tendency to affirm the virtues of peace while secretly adoring war. But that is precisely what we must demand that they, and our elected members of Congress, do.