Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 22, 1991 TAG: 9102220628
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHARLES C. FINN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He reveals one of the reasons for his rancor: "The peace movement always tries to seize the moral high ground by declaring itself against all war."
First, notice his effort to blur by identifying all protesters as pacifists, conveniently ignoring that what first and foremost is being protested is this war when other avenues had not been fully explored. Second, is there not something incongruous about resenting others' taking the "moral high ground" and then insisting from higher ground yet that we have a moral imperative to wage this war?
To the peace movement's attempt to support the troops by not jeopardizing their lives senselessly, Thomas says: "Nice try, but it won't work. The troops and the war go together."
Could he really be dismissing the possibility of an unnecessary and therefore unjust war? If not, is he saying that one who believes a national policy morally abhorrent is to keep silent about it, lest one appear to be not supportive of precisely those who are being sacrificed by this policy? Doesn't America stand for not only the right but also the responsibility to speak out?
To Ethel Kennedy's challenge that America has now become party to aggression, he counters: "That's another thing the peace movement is famous for: blaming America first." It is a distortion to imply the peace movement has not blamed Saddam first. It just questions the folly of hastening against reason to use the tactics of the bully to beat the bully, regardless of the catastrophic cost.
He also makes the incredible assertions that Bush's urgency in bypassing the sanctions in favor of assault was "the only way to protect our highest values" and that those taking to the streets in protest of the slaughter, at significant personal risk in face of superpatriotic fury, "see no values worth fighting for."
Thomas then gets to the heart of it. What's wrong with the peace movement's preference for negotiation over confrontation in its pursuit of a better world, he tells us, is that it "presumes each side has equally good intentions. What to do when one side is good (or at least not evil) and the other side evil incarnate, they never say."
Saddam Hussein couldn't have said it more pointedly. It would be hard to find a clearer expression of the good-guy-vs.-bad-guy, holier-than-thou mentality that, as long as it prevails, makes communication futile and bloody conflict ultimately inevitable. President Bush's adherence to the philosophy in Thomas' column can be seen in his recent assertion that he is "totally, absolutely, 100 percent certain" that his decision to attack when we did was "the only moral choice."
If this seems reasonable and righteous to you, then you will no doubt cheer our effort in the Persian Gulf to the last bomb, however devastating, all the while condemning the contemptible demonstrators for dividing our nation, demoralizing our troops, and playing right into Saddam's Satanic hands.
But if instead it strikes alarm in you as you recognize a different variety of the fanaticism that is unleashing monstrous killing, then find your courage and your voice to say NO to it in a manner consistent with the morality rising from your own reason and conscience.
by CNB