Is Waging Peace About Winning Or To Live In A Free Nation?

Until we come to an understanding that win/lose is a lose/lose for all we will continue to make mistakes.  The competitive mindset is the one where we must win at all costs.  It is a matter of honour, pride and self esteem.  In truth to play the game of win/win which is the mantra of conflict resolution is much tougher as you have to look at yourself not the other.  In truth there is no other, only a mind made projection on the basis of right and wrong which creates an other. One you take that position it can have implications that destroy lives and hope for so many. It shuts down the create potential in this world to learn from conflict and create an advanced civilisation.

When I studied Peace Studies and in particular, Gandhi, I came to realise that there are no enemies, only the ones running around in our heads when we demonise others.  I saw power as a desire to have control over others rather than share power as advanced by democracy.

As a World Peace Clown I moved through crowds seeing all people as great.  I had the priviledge to see the beauty in every face and played with people of all ages. In Russia with Patch Adams the famous clown doctor, he espoused with great passion, we are all great. He spoke of the love revolution. How can we discover that greatness when so much energy is consumed in projected wars that not only waste public money but reinforce a consciousness of winning in conflicts without responsibility. To never learn from conflict seals our fate to repeat it. 

When I met Scott Ritter I knew very little about him other than he was a former Weapons Inspector in Iraq and soldier.  I had planned to interview him but left my mini disk (recorder) under the chair at a restaurant.  I ended up going to his hotel and just talking with him.  I shared with him what peace is for me, how it feels and that there is no enemy.  I shared with him solutions in peace education and the importance of universal values. I feel strongly to teach children peace at young ages so they can problem solve to deal with conflict rather than bully or run away. I gave examples out of my REAL HOPE peace, nonviolence and anti-bullying program (refer www.worldpeacefull.com). I shared with him what I felt responsibility meant – the ability to respond, to make clear choices – the choice of power over (others) or power within (self), empathy is metaphorically standing in anothers shoes feeling how they feel (bully’s typically lack empathy and dehumanise), to be aware of many perspectives (we all see differently) and be open to diversity, love as the social glue that binds society rather than just a romantic notion. I shared that honesty, in respect of truth, is allowing many truths to coexist. I used a mirror ball to demonstrate each mirror as a person and that it is hard to see yourself, looking into a mirror ball obscures your vision of you. However, when you look into one mirror you discover only you know you, you know your own truth. Importantly to question for truth and to question negativity. I shared with a world ball that oneness is the earth and all life forms and support systems. I explained that we all breathe the same air and have done since oxygen first arrived. I explain from space there are no divisions or maps, it is oceans and landmasses in great diversity. I share that we come from one human family, that peace can be visualised as yin/yang in diversity and contrasts seeking balance. Enjoyment for me is the clown who is happy, where we are not seeking pleasure to fill gaps but actually feeling the joy in being alive, being true to ourselves and doing what makes us truly happy. En-joy-ment is our reason for living and lastly service which is natural when you are aligned with universal values. It all comes together when we understand our innate values and virtues and live it. I have done so and can testify that what I am saying has been true for me. The many peacemakers have all advocated love, compassion, truth and justice. As these are the wayshowers of a new world.

I spoke of my great love of peace and how I practice it as a clown and in my day to day life. I believe I see the real world as people allow me to enter their worlds in a state of play. It is truly a unique perspective yet I feel it to be the real humanity beyond the walls and veils we all construct.

It was funny the two of us in the same room – a peace clown who loves everyone and wouldn’t step on an ant and a soldier who could kill you in a second.  I was not lost on the irony. Yet I felt at peace and showed him one of the pathways to peace that I had discovered.  For me it has always been love. He told me he would re-write his book. I don’t know if he ever did but we all have to re-write the World book to create a new story based on love, compassion and higher knowledge. If we don’t we will find the endgame not too far away.

It is time to evolve from childhood to adulthood and with that comes responsibility. When you choose responsibility you find out what is the true nature of situations and you make a decision and choose who you are in relationship to the issue. We are in times where we are all called upon to make such a decision. It will indeed change the future.

My question is do you choose to be peace or remain at war?

For all war starts within each of us. Just to make that clear war is negativity on all levels. The moment negativity comes in we see separation, we see something wrong with someone and we withdraw love, divide and then punish. The war at the international level is an extreme example of fear and hatred with ramifications.

To be at peace means to deeply look into yourself and weed out all the negativity to find love was always your true nature. I can assure you it is the most liberating and exciting exercise to practice. Suddenly when there is a negative thought you look at yourself not the other. Guess where true power is? It is within you to choose again. When you choose love or positivity, this is the moment you choose peace in the world. Peace is personal and global. The ripples emanate outward and believe me when I say, it makes a difference to the bigger picture. We are all interconnected. Any physicist will agree with this, we also feel it in a myriad of ways. It gives real definition to the words of Gandhi:

“Be the change you wish to see in the World’.

This article below is a review of Scott Ritter’s book ‘Waging Peace The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement.  The review is by a pacifist.

 

Book Review: “Waging Peace” by Scott Ritter

Book Review: “Waging Peace” by Scott Ritter

Book Review: Waging Peace The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement

Author: Scott Ritter Publisher: Nation Books 2007

by Wendy Barth

Scott Ritter is a man who is unaccustomed to losing. He grew up on US military bases and attended military college. Winning is what it’s about, and Lt. Ritter avidly absorbed the writings of some of the greatest military minds, Clausewitz and Sun Tzu in particular, in his training to be a winner. While he may have lost a skirmish or two, Scott Ritter was always on the winning side. Was, that is, until GW Bush ordered the invasion Iraq because Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction.” Lt. Ritter, a man of high integrity, had done his job as weapons inspector to the best of his ability. He made it very clear to the officials of the United States government that there were no such weapons in Iraq. When the U.S. invaded anyway, based on charges that he knew to be false, Lt. Ritter got his first taste of losing. Being trained to be a winner, Lt. Ritter refused to accept defeat, and joined the anti-war movement to fight back. It opened up a whole new social circle for him, as he met with and delivered speeches to the type of people that he’d never had the opportunity to interact with before.

He tells us about it in his latest book, “Waging Peace”, subtitled “the Art of War for the Antiwar Movement.” It’s a slim volume, with 99 pages of his own words, and the complete text of the United States Constitution and the Charter of United Nations as appendices. Interwoven with his autobiography is a fairly scathing critique of the strategies and tactics of some of the people and organizations he has encountered while on his mission.

It has not been an easy alliance for this man steeped in war-making and winning. He has had to spend time with people who don’t divide society into “winners” and “losers” and who aren’t so quick to recognize or appoint “the enemy.” The kind of people who don’t understand the distinction between “strategy” and “tactics”. So he provides us with his textbook on military science 101.

I did not enjoy reading this book, mercifully brief though it may be. I trudged through the exposition of glorious battles, outflanking the enemy, and a fair dose of loser bashing, not the usual reading material for this pacifist. Ritter wants us master conflict and crush the enemy. He wants us to adopt military strategies, to see our efforts as a battlefield. He misses the structure and the single-mindedness of the Marine Corp which devotes a great deal of effort to developing leadership. In the antiwar movement, leadership is much more haphazard. As a coalition of diverse groups allied to the cause of ending the war in Iraq, the current antiwar movement is not the lean mean fighting machine Ritter is accustomed to. Ritter would have us adopt a command structure and the mindset of the military, and rally to the defense of the US constitution and the UN charter.

If pacifists are his audience, then he loses his audience completely (those who are still reading) in the concluding chapter, “On Winning”, where he states: “In conflict you must be prepared to knock your opponent down, and then, instead of offering a helping hand, hold your opponent down with the heel of your foot while you plunge a bayonet into his or her heart. You can be assured that your opponent will do the same to you.” Here he demonstrates that the words of Dr. King have not been heard. Here we see that he’s not able to communicate with those who espouse a different paradigm other than the us-against-them that is so ingrained by his upbringing. Here we see the prejudice of the habitual winner. And we see that while he may be opposed to the current war, he is not truly “antiwar.” He admits as much in the TV interview touting this book, where he claims that the general population only turned against the war in Iraq because the US is losing, and people don’t want to be associated with losers. If we have learned anything from reading this book, it is that by his own definition, he is an ally, not a supporter, of our cause: allies are temporary, supporters are loyal. But that’s okay, allies are what we should be seeking, I believe he is saying. (Could he have said it in a way that inspired, rather than discouraged his audience?)

Scott Ritter has served the anti-war community admirably, by contributing the smoking gun in the form of exposing the lie by the Bush/Cheney administration that lead our nation to war. He continues to expose more smoking guns in the Administration’s rallying for war in Iran – see his other new book, Target Iran. And thanks to the handy copy of the Constitution, which he included in his book, I see that the president and vice president can be impeached for Treason (Article II, Section 4):

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Treason is defined in Article III Section 3:

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on confession in open Court.

“Levy” means “to start or wage (a war).” Therefore, I do believe that Scott Ritter along with Joseph Wilson are two witnesses who have provided Testimony that Bush and Cheney did falsify Evidence of a non-existent Threat, with the Intent to start a War against the United States in Iraq. They succeeded in starting that war. That war rages today. By my reading of the constitution, Bush and Cheney are therefore guilty of Treason and should be impeached.

But don’t get me wrong, I don’t say this to stab my enemy thru the heart with my bayonet. I’m trying to protect the country I love from abuses of power. I do this out of tough love, not because I want to be a winner, but because I want to live in a free nation.

Leave a Reply

Mohandas Gandhi

“An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Archives
Categories