as promised: this week's column-unedited.

I admit it. I am a peace-lovin peacenik pacifist.

I believe it started when I began school. I went to a fairly prestigious Quaker school in downtown Philadelphia. In my formative years, I was taught all about the Quaker way of peace and tolerance.

It could also be my religious beliefs. I'm not quite a practicing Christian althought I was bought up that way. I believe in what Jesus said, when he stated "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God." That's Matthew, 5:9 by the way.

This world we live in is not peaceful. Currently, we remain on alert for more terrorism while worldwide, there are no less than 60 armed local and regional conflicts. Two nuclear powers stare each other in the eye with the specter of creating a nuclear holocaust. The world's lone superpower prepares to invade another power who may or may not have weapons of mass destruction. This superpower has also laid out a national security plan that could lead to endless entanglement, whether it's their buisness or not.

I will be the first pacifist to admit: when I saw those towers fall on September 11, 2001, the first thing I did was use Afghanistan on my world map for target practice. In the initial hours and days, I was all for turning that country, and any other country that supported terrorism into a sheet of radioactive glass. I will also admit that military force is sometimes necessary, as it was in World Wars one and two, and other wars of self-defense such as most of the current War on Terror. My violence-caused violent shock soon faded so I could see clearly.

This is my argument this week. I wish to defend my fellow peaceniks. Since September 11th, we've been called pro-terrorist, pro-Saddam, cowards, treasonous and unpatriotic. A columnist last September called pacifists "evil." Others recommened that pacifists be sent to the front lines. Because most pacifists do not support the Bush Administration's War on Terror, they are "for the terrorists" under the new Bush logic and, by logical extenstion, terrorists. This is nothing new, for in times of war, pacifists have always been called evil and cowardly, and punished horribly for it. I can accept that, that's just the way things are. But some of our greatest leaders were pacifists and they created such awesome gains for humankind. Dr. Martin Luther King, through the Civil Rights movement, helped to even the playing field for millions of disenfranchised Americans. Gandi was able to free India from British rule through non-violent resistence. Nelson Mandela's movement tried the same thing through work-stoppages in South Africa. Pacifists all through history have risked their lives in the name of peace, from Quakers smuggling slaves to people sneaking Jews out of Europe during the Holocaust.

Now, more than ever, we need people like King, Gandhi, and Mandela, and the people who risked their lives to save others. Here's why: We're going to go to war with Iraq, soon. There's no doubt about it. We're going whether the world wants it or not. This is wrong. Pacifists will cite the example of thousands of sick and dying Iraqi children poisoned because the sanctions will not allow Iraq to import water-purification systems. My example is that it is simply wrong and will prove nothing. More terrorism will result. More pacifists will lament. More innocents will die.

Here's how what you can do, if you love peace or even if you don't. Call Congress. It takes all but 10 minutes. Tell them how you really feel about this coming war. If you want it, tell them. If you don't want it, tell them that too. Hopefully they'll listen and perhaps, there can be some peace.



Film at eleven.