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September 09, 2003

More Response

to Last Thursday’s post. I heard from political observer Michael Graham, who has a great article on this subject:

I happily told the listeners, I am ready to sign up for it. So just call me and tell me your plan for peace that leaves Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, and I’ll finally get to be baptized into the wonderful world of peace.

The phones rang off the hook.

My first caller, a very nice lady from a small town in Ohio, said that attacking Saddam was wrong, and that her plan for peace was to pray. That’s it, I asked? Just … pray.

The second caller, from Cincinnati, Ohio, agreed. She had family in the military and they didn’t deserve to die in a war for oil. Prayer was her plan, too.

I started to get nervous perhaps we had accidentally crossed frequencies with the Bible Broadcasting Network.

The third caller, Steve from Dayton, Ohio, was cursing, not praying. President Bush is a [expletive deleted], he’s just fighting his daddy’s war, and he has no right to overrule the United Nations!

OK, I said, great George W. Bush sucks. Got that message. Checked it off. Now, what’s the plan for peace, Steve?

Silence. Uh, I just don’t think we should go to war.

But Steve, we’re at war now. What’s your plan to end the war?

More silence. I don’t know what you …

The war? You know, the one that started in 1993 with the first attack on the World Trade Center? The war with 3,000 American civilian casualties in one day? The war that is targeting American civilians here at home, American journalists in Pakistan, American soldiers in Kuwait and American diplomats in Jordan? That war. You’ve heard something about it, I hope?

Yeah, I mean, right, Steve stammered. All we can really do about that is …

If you say pray, I interrupted, I’m going to become the first peace activist to kill someone with his bare hands.

No, we can hope for new leadership in the Middle East that will change their attitudes about us.

Yeah. Right.

Read the whole thing.