Blair to meet Bush this week - but will he dare to mention 'climate'? 11 November 04

Iraq is a mess. I believe in avoiding war at all costs. I believe that any country which seeks to engage in a war presents itself with difficult no-win options.

I am antiwar, but at this point there does not seem to be many viable options to reduce or eliminate bloodshed, so anything resembling something good I do hope for. I would like to see our troops and the UK troops come home as soon as possible.

About something good and it may be wishful thinking, but I do hope the troops can find that Care Lady alive and rescue her and find those people responsible for the beheadings and bombings. I do not feel bad about disarming people of weapons and explosives.

In fact, I do know from our own history of Vietnam that if you cannot disarm your enemy, then you will loose the war. The political situation at the time was that we could never take over North Vietnam (it was not viable politically) and therefore their ability to continue to engage in conflict was not eliminated. Based on that alone, we should have never engaged Vietnam at all and we should learn from this to avoid all conflicts but especially those whereby we cannot easily disarm the enemy.

Iraq is like Vietnam in that way. We did not disarm the population soon after the invasion. We did not have the troops to do so. The worry I guess was that more casualties would result from doing that. And like Vietnam, if we cannot disarm Iraq, then we may repeat the lesson of Vietnam.

Given only 2 choices of occupying and allowing soldiers and civilians to be subject to killing every single day or to try and disarm the militants, I do prefer disarming the militants instead considering that to be the lesser of the 2 evils.

I do like Tony Blair compared to many US politicians. He seems to try and level with the people on issues and is more articulate than our president by far. He listens to his critics and does try to answer them. At least this is my impression when I do hear him speak on our network news on occasion. So, I do wish him well.

I also do not blame Tony Blair too severely over Iraq. Concerning this war, our current administration went to great lengths to make a case for the war by declaring Iraq to have WMDs. As it turned out, this became not the case.

With regard to how the war was conducted during and after the invasion, who would have thought it would go as badly as it did. I was against the war from the beginning and had thought it may go bad. But it seems that so many mistakes by our government (which Tony Blair had nothing to do with) have aggravated the situation leading to where we are now.

I do think about the troops and care about them. Many of them from the USA joined the military as a way to gain a college education during peacetime. Many of them joined our National Guard and Reserves which are not the forces whom we normally deploy. So, many of them are trapped and cannot get out of it.

With regard to what is asked of the troops, I do not envy them. They are required to not kill anyone unless it is to protect their life or that of civilians. They are required not to take an attitude of revenge when they see their friends die beside them.

They must be frightened beyond imagination. Many die. Many who do live have lost limbs or even their sight. I think the troops suffer very much.

Many soldiers have made mistakes and hurt innocent people and must live with that. So, I do care about these guys even though I am against war.

When they are up against it, I still wish them well in doing the best they can to protect both themselves and noncombatants. Like Vietnam, Iraq has militants which blend into the civilian population making this task ever more difficult for our troops to avoid hurting innocent people.

But since I am not a military guy and it is beyond any of my control, I must focus on the task at hand which is reducing energy use and carbon emissions. I think that building a more sustainable world economy would reduce some of the root causes of conflict.

I would like to see the USA reduce all military worldwide. I would rather we focus on improving our energy infrastructure and reducing our debt by diverting funds normally destined to go to the military. I think that may help us create more security and stability for ourselves and others.

By eliminating the root causes of conflict and therefore reducing its likelihood, then we spare the suffering of both military personal and noncombatants. I had a good friend who died about 7 years ago. He was a Navy Seal during Vietnam. He shared much with me including being the only survivor of an ambush killing 27 men in his unit. He was wounded twice receiving 2 Purple Hearts.

He died of leukemia which may have been triggered by the defoliant Agent Orange used during Vietnam. He told me after this chemical was dropped, that it took only ten minutes to eliminate all the leaves on every tree.

They soon went in after this and he sensed the potency of the chemical and instinctively placed a wet cloth over his mouth. He joined the war protest much later after his tour in Vietnam and was arrested for protesting the war.

Many who join our military have a nationalist passion to defend our country. They believe in protecting our freedoms and would say of war protesters that I do not agree with what you say but I would die to defend your right to say it.

I would like to see more of us have a similar passion to help create a world whereby no one feels it is necessary to engage in conflict. I would like to see a similar passion toward our efforts to prevent climate change. It may be wishful thinking but one I hope for nevertheless.

Concerning Kyoto, I would be happy if we could just pass the Climate Stewardship Act even though it is less than Kyoto. It is at least in the right direction of Kyoto and a beginning for the USA. It may lead to something better later.

I think personally that we at some point not only need to find a way to embrace Kyoto but actually go beyond Kyoto. That may be wishful thinking on my part as well.

But hope and wishful thinking is better than despair. We have no time for despair but only to do our very best to help mitigate climate change. We need to be passionate about it. I know Mark is.

And Mark, this time I responded directly to your original blog for a change.