“Taking the nation to war based on misleading rhetoric and hyped intelligence is a travesty and a tragedy. It is the most cynical of all cynical acts. It is dangerous to manipulate the truth. It is dangerous because once having lied, it is difficult to ever be believed again.”

Oh, the little demon comes back to haunt us all. It’s inside our heads whispering deceit to clear away deceit. It eats away at our insides until we are naked before ourselves. It is unmistakable and cannot be prevented because we can never find a hole deep enough or dark enough to forget. As long as we exist we will be reminded of the deceit that we bring down upon us. The lies will reverberate loudly until the echoes tear down the walls. We will succumb to the demons because we can never escape ourselves or the harmful actions imparted under the cloak of righteousness. And despite the erroneous wisdom given to us by men who bend the ear of our President hoarding his thoughts and actions (Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney), there is no glory in war. There are no great songs that praise murder and death and destruction. Our children will never look back on these days with admiration and wonder unless we change our course.

September 11, 2001 happened so that we could see the horror of war. For a moment we all understood how terrible weapons can be in the hands of deceit. When we pound the drums of war with lies and ignorance we have set our fate. These demons now push the seeds of hate into our spines locking us within their embrace. The men who lie to us are not our saviors. They are instrumental in our demise. It is time to do what is right. It is time for humanity to exclaim with a shout that it is wrong to kill each other! It is time to throw down our weapons and stand up with our hearts! It is time to use our voice to tear down the demons that we have come to adore, to shove them back down into the recesses where they belong. We will never win when we fight with hate.

This will always be the message of great leaders. Throughout history we’ve heard similar voices from Human Beings who not only spoke of the power of nonviolence but also breathed it, made it the essence of their lives. Mahatma Ghandi, Jesus of Nazareth, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Socrates, Rachel Corrie, Josei Toda, Linus Pauling, Mikhail Gorbechov, Rosa Parks, Margaret Sanger, Cesar Chavez, Siddartha Gautama, Florence Nightengale, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Woody Guthrie, Leo Tolstoy.

These people spoke with the voice of reason, humility and compassion. Their words have resounded throughout the ages. They are words of peace...not war. They are words of courage...not deception.