Good News at Last from the New York Times

Yesterday the New York Times called for the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, and the bodies of six Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan arrived back in this country. A year ago, the bloody month-long battle between Israel and Lebanon began.

I was born in war time, and my earliest memories are of the uncertainty surrounding what was going to happen next. We were far from the direct path of the war—my father never even made it overseas—but the fear and the worry from that time have marked my life. That it has taken this long for the most influential newspaper in the United States to come out against the stupidity of the American adventure in Iraq, that the current Canadian government seems prepared to let Canadians die in ill-conceived operations in one country where armed intervention might have made a difference, and that tensions in Israel and Lebanon still fester—all this is enough to make one weep in anger.

That would be an inappropriate response, though. Just as the only shelter during the Cold War was peace, so the only way to resolve these conflicts is to let our leaders know what we think. Write, e-mail, call, fax: let them know that things are getting worse, not better. We need another approach, one which will encourage dialogue and development, not destruction.