Patch Adams on US Foreign Policy
Heather's thoughts: I don't care whether you support the wars the US is engaged in or not. Dr. Adams' thoughts speak to me of common decency, kindness, the Golden Rule, the 1st Commandment, whatever you want to call it. Here they are:
While the State Department’s Alberto Fernandez felt obligated to take back his comments that elements of U.S. policy in Iraq have been arrogant and stupid, the truth is that U.S. policy post-9/11 has been driven by arrogance and stupidity. What could be stupider than the idea that violence could end the threat of terrorism and make us safer at home? Simple logic tells us that responding to terror with more violence will only lead to more terror and more violence. Now we have that logic confirmed by the grim facts on the ground in Iraq.
Isn’t it time for a radical change of course? There’s only one thing more powerful than violence, and that’s love. So shouldn’t we be fighting violence with love? I don’t mean relational love. I mean treating people with love. Feeding them. Educating them. Healing them. That kind of love.
As a doctor and a clownI’ve seen the tremendous healing power of love. The number one factor for surviving a heart attack is having a loving community. A study of 4,000 women with breast cancer found that with a little love (six hour-long support session)s their survival rate increased five-fold. With the situation in Iraq imploding, tensions increasing with Iran and North Korea, and our government’s policies leading more and more people to hate Americans, it’s time to take the healing power of love to the global level. It’s time for a love platform.
What’s a love platform? It’s a set of policies that shows compassion for the elderly, the mentally ill, the homeless, the poor. It’s a platform that treats the environment with the loving respect it deserves.
A love platform would call for kissing, not killing. You switch two little letters and you get a whole new outlook on life. Kissing, not killing.
A love platform would put women in chargewomen with loving instincts who would treat the world the way my mother treated my friends when they came to my house. She fed them, she wiped their noses, she was nice. That’s it. We’d have a policy called “Be Nice.” If everyone treated people like my mother did, we’d put an end to violence.
We need to create a massive global movement for loving. It would be like the Peace Corps times 10,000. People who have resources would go, en masse, to help those without. People with skills would teach those without. People who are healthy would take care of those who are sick.
We’d save cabinet positions for the Amish people who embraced the family of the man who killed their children. We’d put in charge of foreign policy the people who lost loved ones on 9/11 but insisted that revenge was not the answer, or the women of CODEPINK who tried desperately to stop the war in Iraq before it even began.
It really amazes me that we spend so many hours as a society focusing on love as sex or love that some consider perverse: Mark Foley sending emails to underage boys, Bill Clinton with an intern, love between people of the same sex. But we spend no time focusing on the big love that should drive our lives and our policies, i.e. love for the human family. We spend no time in school teaching young people how to grow up to be loving adults. The media gives us never-ending examples of violence and hate, but rarely gives us the uplifting examples of the kid who spends his lunch money on feeding the homeless. We hear about the brave soldiers who fight, but not about the peopleoften womenwho force the soldiers to put down their guns.
For those who say that a love platform is ridiculous and naive, I ask them to compare the results of the $300 billion we’ve spent on war in Iraq with what we would get if we had spent that money on setting up health clinics all over the world and feeding people who are hungry. I travel around the world and meet lots of people who fear and hate us. If we spent our energy and resources uplifting people in needspreading laughter and light instead of bombs and bulletswe’d live in a world that was happier, healthier and safer.
So come November 7, be smart. Vote out stupid and arrogant candidates who think that occupying Iraq by force or bombing Iran will make us safe. And vote for candidates who understand the simple notion that love is not only the best medicine, it’s also smart policy.
Patch Adams, M.D., is a nationally known speaker on wellness, laughter, humor and life. To support peace candidates, go to www.givepeaceavote.org.
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Comments (1)
According to the October 26 article by Rachel Morarjee and Daniel Dombey in London’s The Financial Times, NATO “…sought to dismiss fears that its operation in Afghanistan was in disarray…” after a clash in the southern region of the country that may have killed dozens of civilians. Exactly like the strategy in Iraq, NATO leaders are prosecuting the war in Afghanistan using conventional military tactics of firepower and attrition against an unconventional threat. Once again, the political and military forces should be more concerned with separating the insurgents from the rest of the populace via classic counterinsurgency techniques. Instead, they are driving support directly to our enemies.
Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the British army has stated that NATO troops are in a much better position to manage the fighting in Afghanistan than equivalent forces in Iraq. Of course, the US forces in Iraq were once in a better position to deal with the insurgents there. That is, until the unrestrained and harsh treatment of the civilian populace drove up recruitment for the insurgents.
According to the article by Jason Motlagh in today’s Asia Times Online, military officials insist that at least 155 Afghan civilians have been killed and remain the most common victims in what appears as purely indiscriminate violence.
Nonetheless, Mark Laity, a NATO spokesman in Afghanistan recently stated, “We have demonstrated that we are strong enough on the combat side to be the winners. After 30 years of fighting, people in the south are nervous of being on the wrong side.”
A nervous populace is not conducive to winning an insurgency. This simply indicates that the population is not sure who to be more afraid of, the government and NATO, the local warlords, or the Taliban insurgents.
Sam Zarifi of Human Rights Watch has pointed out “The Soviets tried and failed to defeat Afghan guerrillas by using massive firepower so we know clearly that that is not the way to win in Afghanistan. You have to win the populace over, not kill it.”
Our radical Islamic enemies understand that as long as the population is not on our side—even if they are not on the Taliban or extremist side—then the western powers are on the defensive regardless of how much firepower they unleash.
Of course, NATO leaders will imply that since the insurgents are hitting and running from western and government forces, they are on the defensive and that we are winning or somehow making progress in the war on terror. Once again they are fooling themselves and trying to convince the rest of us.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Comment #1 Posted by: Matt Rowe | October 28, 2006 03:03 PM