BACKGROUND
Thurston County and the Greater South Puget Sound Community is
home to a population of approximately 300,000 people or over a
1,000,000 if you include Pierce County. We live in close
proximity to the
Bangor Submarine Base. Fort Lewis is just up the road
a few miles. Our communities, our cities, our schools and
our neighborhoods are a cosmopolitan mix of progressive ideas,
military families, traditional values, and congenial tolerance.
But the US military campaign in Iraq goes right through the Port
of Olympia these days.
The
aggressive military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have given
many of us reason to pause and reflect on how our federal
government's actions can
impact our lives and the lives of our neighbors. Many of us
are very concerned that the Bush Administration may now be
planning a military attack against Iran. There is reason
to believe that the United States could even be considering use
of nuclear weapons against Iran.
Many
progressives and peace activists are very worried about this
country's descent into militarism. We are worried
about individual soldiers who are our friends, neighbors, sons,
daughters, fathers, and mothers. Military adventures can
so easily become misadventures as Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq
show us.
Opponents to American
military power are unlikely to choose an open battlefield to
mount their opposition.
Asymmetric war is a fact of life and it's really nothing
new. A couple of centuries ago American rebel forces chose to
hide behind trees and rocks to shoot at the British military who
marched in straight lines and wore red coats.
What is new
is the
devastating power and
deadliness of modern weaponry and military technology.
Before the development of nuclear weapons, a military
misadventure had the potential to kill millions of human beings
and devastate the countryside. In the world of nuclear
weapons, a misadventure has the potential to develop into a
nuclear exchange where we all become
collateral
damage. Even "well contained" military adventures like
Vietnam give us a generation of young people who suffer from
exposure to chemical weapons such as
Agent Orange.
The war comes home.
Life in the twentieth century
is like a parachute jump:
you have
to get it right the first time.
Margaret Mead
Human beings who have actually seen the horror of nuclear
weapons feel compelled to warn the rest of us that the power of
these weapons is beyond our imagination. As decades
go by and the complete and utter destructive power of these
weapons fade into history books, military planners and weapon
designers have started to wonder if we can tame these weapons?
Can we use them in limited ways, in smaller configurations as
"bunker busters" or as uranium tipped shells with amazing
power to penetrate armor?
Is it safe
to have our children and family members handle, load and fire
depleted
uranium shells? Can the troops and civilians live in
these
uranium-contaminated battlefields or will the war come home
with them?
So what can be
done? Well, I don't think we should wait for political
leaders to give us the kind of world we want for ourselves, our
grandchildren, and their grandchildren. If we want a
better world, we have to make it. One community at a time.
One ordinance at a time. One person at a time. If
not us, who? If not now, when? The here and now is
calling.
We are the ones we have
been waiting for. |
