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March 26, 2003

Op-Ed

the other press

 

“Tom, Why do
People Go to War?”

Erin Culhane
Opinions Editor

While lounging on the couch at our Friday night hangout—
Marina’s Gelato in Maple Ridge—the kids and I picked up the
Guinness Book of World Records. Big mistake. Not because of
the 700 pound bikini model or the man who had held his right
hand up for 25 years so that his fingers were shriveled up into
nothing, his hand withered and rotten. But because of the
“Most Land mines” category, where there was a picture of a lit-
tle boy in a wheelchair with no legs.

“Oh no—what happened to him, Mom?” cried my daughter
Haleigh.

So I read the paragraph beside the photo and then explained,
“In some countries there are little bombs underneath the
ground and you can’t see where they are, so if you walk over
one it blows your legs off.” Bigger mistake. Nothing like sugar-
coating the horrible truth, telling the gentle version of a cruel
reality. Way to go, Mom. Well, she was beside herself, tears
flowing and mad as anything, “Who would do such a thing?”
she yelled.

I tried to undo the damage by taking a softer approach,
“Well, they don't mean for children to get hurt. But you know
I bet he_has parents who take good care of him, and he'll prob-
ably get some prosthetic legs so he can walk around.” (Yeah,
because prosthetics are readily available in third-world, land
mine countries.) We flipped through the book some more, but
the record for the furthest eyeball popping didn’t do much to
take the land mine incident off our minds.

On the car ride home Haleigh said, “Mom, do you think
that when I go back to school and I’m playing at recess and
having fun with my friends, I'll be able to forget about that lit-
tle boy?”

So we talked some more and she decided that she would say
a prayer for the boy when she got home.

Her next question: “Mom, why do people go to war?” Okay,
I can't figure that one out myself, how am I going to explain it
to a five-year-old?

My son beat me to it, answering, “To get peace.” Wow, a seven-
year-old’s perspective on war.

I threw in my two cents, “The good guys go in to countries
where there are bad guys that treat people badly and they try
to get rid of the bad guys and make things better for the coun-
try.

I’m on the fence. It’s a strange and foreign place for me.
Usually I can figure out exactly where I stand on an issue and
then, with the help of my Taurus sign and decades of pig-head-
edness, not move from my position.

But when it comes to the war on Iraq—the “war on terror-
ism” if you will—the fence is the only comfortable place for me
to be. If it really is, as I explained to my kids, then President
George Bush is the good guy and Saddam Hussein the bad guy.
If only it were that simple—George could just get in a ring
with Saddam, go a few rounds and reign freedom on the peo-
ple of Iraq. But it’s bigger than that and I can’t fully understand
it myself. So trying to educate my children about it is a daunt-
ing task to say the least.

Once the kids were in their pjamas, I heard Haleigh crying
quietly in her room. She came out and said, “I prayed to God
that he could help the little boy and that he could have plastic
legs.”

Part of me regrets putting those sad thoughts in her wee
mind, but another part thinks it is important for her to under-
stand that the world is bigger than right here in cozy Maple
Ridge. That bad things happen to innocent people in other
parts of the world and that we're lucky to be where we are.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of how fortunate I am
to be able to keep my kids safe whether we're going for our
weekly gelato, walking through a grassy field, or just hanging

out here on my fence.

 

http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca

   
 

Beverly Greene
OP Contributor

In recent weeks, there have been countless stories in

the media about why a war in Iraq is wrong. There
has not been, however, a lot of coverage devoted to
the opinions of average people on the other side of
the debate. This has been particularly true on col-
lege and university campuses, where the ephemeral
idea of “student politics” allows for only one kind of
opinion. Because I strongly believe that all sides of
a debate should be heard in hopes that we can all
become better informed, I offer myself as one of
those unpopular voices.

Since this situation arose, every time I’ve read one
of these stories telling the world that war in Iraq is
not the answer, somehow I managed to scrap up a
little more hope. “Great!” I thought, “What is the
answer?” Sadly, my question always went unan-
swered. Instead, there was little more than anti-
American posturing and a blanket refusal to see the
world as it really is—a mean and sometimes violent
place where asking nicely doesn’t always work.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying war is a
good option, only a last option. And I’m certainly
not saying that it doesn’t suck, because there’s no
getting around the fact that it does. People die on all
sides, people with families and friends, people who
all think they're fighting for the right cause regard-
less of which side of the conflict they happen to be
on. War is a messy, horrible thing that should never
be taken lightly.

And of course, there is no question that we should
never go to war over something as stupid as oil. We
already have the technology to greatly decrease our
consumption of oil and we simply choose not to use

 

J.J. McCulloug
OP Cartoonis

In Defence of War

it. But not given the option to continue postponin
the inevitable, we could adapt. Still, I don’t belie
it is a war about oil, or at least it shouldn't be.
should be about the only thing worth fighting for
freedom.

Here in North America particularly, we hold fre
dom as a basic human right. We believe that
should be able to live, say, love, believe, and be wh
or what we want. Any attempt to infringe on thos
rights is met with great resistance, except, apparent
ly, when it comes to the freedom of other people.

But freedom should not be a right reserved solel
for those fortunate enough to be born in or immj
grate to a free nation. Freedom should not be decid
ed by accident of birth. Freedom should be a basi
human right for all people.

And freedom is a right the people of Iraq an
numerous other countries around the world do na
currently enjoy. We've tried asking. We've trie
threatening. We've tried inspecting. And after it al
in the ten years weve been trying, nothing ha
changed. How much more will it take? How man
people have to be slaughtered in their homes o
imprisoned in dirty cells for years on end just fo
voicing a non-state sanctioned opinion before wi
are finally willing to stand up and say, “Enough!”?

Nothing will ever cost humanity more than free
dom. And maybe that’s the way it should bd
because nothing else will ever be as precious. But j
we are not willing to fight for freedom, both o
own and others’, if we’re not willing to lay down o
lives so that others may live free, does it really mea
anything at all?

 

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