Today a large peace rally was held in downtown Columbia to mark the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. So far from the halls of power where decisions about war are made, sometimes even the most strident pro-peace statements can produce feelings of helplessness and despair. But today's rally was informative, positive, and encouraging.

One of the best aspects of the day, both in its spoken themes and in who participated, was a palpable sense of togetherness--of this being a shared issue with shared solutions. Military veterans, church members, teachers, teenagers, activists, musicians, and families all exchanged smiles, hugs, questions, and concerns about the moral quagmire in which our country currently finds itself.

Perhaps the emotional highlight of the day was a stirring speech by the Rev. Maureen Dickmann of Rock Bridge Christian Church. Rev. Dickmann challenged the status quo from a moral perspective, scorning the pseudo-holy words used by our current leaders as hollow and meaningless perversions of the peaceful nature of Christ and his teachings, and encouraging people of faith to pursue peace and abandon leaders whose mission is more violence.

Also delivering a bitingly observant speech was John Betz of Veterans for Peace. Betz, a blue-collar Vietnam veteran, spoke of the ease with which those with wealth and power sacrifice others for their causes while suffering no pain or loss themselves. He also drew on his personal, first-hand experience to highlight parallels between the misguided motivations for going to war in Vietnam with the words and motivations used by our leaders today.

Professor Michael Ugarte admonished the current administration and advised us all to heed the words of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower:

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

The rally ended with a statement of hope from organizer Mark Haim that next year, we come together to celebrate a war which has ended rather than another year of ongoing death and misery.

I've opposed this war, this unjust invasion, from day one, and I do so now, unflaggingly. Justified with falsified evidence, lies, and deceit; sold using fear and allusions to the unrelated terrorist attacks of 9/11/01; executed with poor strategy and under-equipped soldiers; and consuming more innocent lives every day (latest counts are more than 2,300 American GIs killed, more than 4,200 post-invasion Iraqi police & military deaths, and more than 33,000--at the very least--Iraqi civilians killed).

And for what result, what benefit? Are we really safer than before this debacle began? We've turned a stable country into a seething hotbed of terrorist activity. We've turned the only secular government in the Middle East into a fundamentalist theocracy, democratic in name only. Of course Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator, and his people weren't free, but is this the solution?

In the name of pursuing democracy (that is, after the president's first couple of justifications were proven to be dishonest fabrications), we've poisoned our relations with the rest of the world, unleashing fear, violence, antagonism, and mistrust around the globe. In the name of freedom, we've tortured and imprisoned thousands of people charged with no crime. We've condoned spying on our own citizens without any judicial oversight. We've allied ourselves with violent dictatorships for the conveniences of air space and having somewhere to export our difficult prisoners for torture. We've become what we hate.

This isn't the America I've grown up in, the one I love. This is wrong. And we can do better.

Labels: Politics