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Counting up to Peace?
A time for reconciliation
by Greg Moses
Mar. 3, 2003
Because the Turkish parliament could not quite bring itself to act
like the US Congress and just say yes to war, can it be that we may now count up to peace?
Before these Turkish-led days of grace, the bad news had been coming too quickly:
The US President said he was warring for social reform in other
people's nations, the military Chief of Staff guessed that 200,000
troops would occupy Iraq, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld refused
to say how much the whole game might cost, because, actually, there's no telling what will happen.
As the sounds of these words hovered as fore-shocks, there were
small reasons to hope. Dan Rather quietly spoke of *journalism
not jingoism* and a few reporters stopped counting down to war and
instead demanded that the Pentagon add things up.
Now it is time to repay Turkey their favor. It is time for peacemakers
to propose the steps that will allow all parties to stand down and
save face. It is time for our media to count on the possibilities of peace.
The latest clips at NVUSA present the bare outlines of a context
in which war plans have been slowed down just enough for US citizens
to help their President think. Do we really want to trash Iraq
and our children's futures, too? Or do we want to step back from this brink?
Here's the count up: March 5 (student strike); March 8 (women's day of peace); March 12 (workplace
peace day); March 15 (convergence on the white house). If we spend
these two weeks seriously looking for face-saving conflict resolution
on all sides, we can still emerge together as a world of winners,
a new human family under the influence of a new super power known as publics for peace.
Thanks to democracy in the middle east, we can now stop counting
down to war, and begin counting up to peace. Bush, Hussein, Annan,
and the rest of you guys with missiles and cameras, do you think you could help us out?
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