I envy them their certainty.

Whether you’re against or for the coming war, if you are positive your position is the right one, I envy you that.

Is President Bush that certain? I’m not sure. Decision-makers don’t have to be certain, they just have to make decisions. It’s probably better if they aren’t totally certain, if they have lingering doubts. Better for us, harder for them.

Certainty is comforting.

I wish I was certain, one way or the other, but I’m not. Strange, because I’m an anti-warrior from way back (i.e., Vietnam era). Even in 90-91, I wasn’t sure war was necessary and came down against it. There was too much hypocrisy for me to stomach, in the claims that it wasn’t about oil, when it so clearly was.

That’s there this time too, but I have a lot more trouble embracing the anti-war side and if I really had to choose – like Bush does and I don’t – but if I did have to take a hard position, I think I would go in too. It just seems terribly naïve to me now, to say that Iraq is not a threat to the U.S. or hasn’t been proven to be a threat. Isn’t that the principal lesson of 9/11? Do we have to wait for a 9/11-level of proof? That seems like a bad idea.

I was in the big anti-war demonstration in London on February 15, but in it more as a tourist than participant. I wanted to ask “what war?” When I started to protest the Vietnam War, people had been dying there for years, continuously from WWII onward. This war is (as I write this, at least) still hypothetical.

On the anti-war side, I’m bothered by the organizers whose true agenda is masked by the simplicity of “No War” rhetoric. They’re not hiding. The various groups with “socialist” or “communist” in their names all had tables and signs at the London demonstrations, but I’m not sure the mass of marchers realized that those were the principal organizers. Their agenda seems to be equal parts theoretical Marxism and nihilism, but a pretty harmless, merely contrarian brand of nihilism. Terrorists are the world’s only true practicing nihilists.

For decades, maybe for centuries, bored and alienated (and generally affluent, safe and comfortable) adolescents have adopted nihilist poses, but now that we see the real thing in all its glory, the pose isn’t so easy to shrug off. Nihilist wannabes need to give that some real hard thought. The rest of us do too. How tolerant should we be of casual nihilism?

I’m especially bothered by the pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel stance that is so high on many of the agendas of the anti-war leaders. It seems like thinly-veiled anti-Semitism, a new, more socially-acceptable way to blame everything on the Jews, as Christian Europeans have conveniently done for centuries.

On the pro-war side, I’m bothered by the precedent of attacking and conquering a sovereign nation because of what we’re afraid they might do. It’s a misreading of history to say America doesn’t start wars (just ask Mexico), but this smacks of a very old world order, the oldest, not a new one. Since before recorded history, peoples have attacked and conquered weaker neighbors to “protect” themselves from a perceived threat. The logical end would seem to be a “Pax Americana,” a world in which you’re either with us or against us and if you’re against us, you’re toast. Bush said that after 9/11, except the toast part, but that was implied, wasn’t it? What else could it mean?

As Americans, we always thought we weren’t like that. Are we now? Is that what changed on 9/11? Is this the best we can do? Is there a viable alternative? We thought we were different. Are we now discovering that we’re not, or worse, that we never were?

Here’s a fact from the March 24, 2003, issue of Newsweek. It’s a fact I have trouble wrapping my head around. “The United States will spend as much next year on defense as the rest of the world put together (yes, all 191 countries). And it will do so devoting 4 percent of its GDP, a low level by postwar standards.”

Who are we now? The world’s policeman? Maybe even that image is too benign. If it looks like imperialism and it walks like imperialism, then don’t we have to call it imperialism? Is that where this is going? Can we avoid imperialism and still protect ourselves enough?

I wish I knew. I wish I knew for sure.

© 2003, Charles Kendrick Cowdery, All Rights Reserved.