September 13–20, 2001

loose canon

No More War

by Bruce Schimmel

On the TV screen, the second World Trade Tower is collapsing into a maelstrom of its own rubble. The newscaster struggles for words. He starts to stutter.

"We are at…we are at…we are at…."

The rasping voice of a producer from behind a camera, begs him not to finish his sentence.

"Don’t say the word. Don’t say that word," he pleads.

The word not to be said is "war."

I agree: Call it what you will, but please don’t call this a war.

Given the wars we’ve waged and have mostly lost in the past forty years, I am frankly scared of another tragedy that is called a war.

Think of the war in Vietnam, the on-going war in Korea, the Gulf War that seems a war without end — of which this present attack is surely an off-shoot.

And then there are the failed wars still being fought on the domestic front: the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, and even a new "War on Illiteracy" that Bush himself declared earlier this week.

Sadly, once again, the President has declared another war, a War on Terrorism.

I’m terrified that this war will be as protracted, debilitating and injurious to our principles and to our culture as all the other wars we continue to wage.

Call it anything but a war.

Don’t get me wrong: I want all the criminals, and all of their cronies, hunted down. I want everyone who is responsible for the murder of thousands to be brought to justice. I want retribution.

Yes, I admit it. If they’re guilty, I’d like to see their heads on pikes. Almost.

For just retribution is one thing, and raw revenge is another. And what I fear most in a war, is that once again we become captives of our need for revenge, making us as bloodthirsty as criminals.

A War on Terrorism will also inflict the same kind of collateral damage to the rights of our own people as the War on Drugs continues to do.

Our privacy, the sanctity of our homes, our freedoms of movement and expression must not be weakened. We would surely wither.

When the first reports started coming in, President Bush called this an attack on our freedom, and said that our freedom would be defended.

So, let us not live under martial law.

Call it what you want, but don’t called it a war.

For in a war, if you don’t know your enemy, all are suspect, and we inevitably become our own enemy.

Please. This cannot be a war: for in wars there are winners and losers. Yet here, it is possible that they may not win, but we will have surely lost.

No more war.