Nerve of the Day. AOL hilited today a story about President Ford's lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda that included this passage:

"It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely though a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe," said Cheney ["the current vice president who was Ford's chief of chief"], speaking in the Rotunda where Ford's body rested. "Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon."

This came one day after Iraq executed Saddam Hussein, an act the Bush-Cheney Government incited and praised. Ironic, huh?
+
Gerald Ford led us out of the Watergate era, with these words:

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

For that, the Nation, at the least, must forever be grateful.
+
Iraq has entered a new era more harshly. Will the death of Saddam allow Iraq to move on cleanly and forgivingly as the pardon of Nixon allowed us to move on? Would that it could.
+
At end, it is almost certain that any successful government of Iraq will have to extend mass pardons to present-day insurgents in order to return Iraq to peace. The quest for "justice" thru reprisal all too rarely succeeds, because one man's justice is another man's outrage. The will to triumph, to pound one's chest like the dominant gorilla after he has chased away or killed his rival, is built into our primeval nature. But Jesus wasn't just awoofin' when he said "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9).
+
Peace is more than the absence of violent conflict. It is letting go of grievances, of apologizing of open heart, and making amends, not excuses. It's very hard to do, which is why Jesus said that peacemakers "shall be called the children of God", which I take to mean that peacemakers have something of the divine in them, the power and indeed the authority to forgive. There's a certain majesty in forgiving, which is why some people resent being forgiven. 'Who are you to forgive me!?! If anything, I should forgive you!' Fine, forgive me, forgive him, forgive her, forgive everyone and let us have peace.
+
Gerald Ford was a very decent man. Not perfect, but decent. He meant well and achieved wonders in an abbreviated, solitary term as President of the United States.
+
Saddam Hussein was a monstrously bad man, but he maintained very solid order in a fractious and violent country, within a fractured and violent region, for almost 24 years. George W. Bush, who is neither a decent man nor by intent a monstrously bad man, overthrew Saddam and loosed the demons we see ravaging Iraq today. Bush threw open Pandora's box, which Saddam had kept titely sealed, and there is no way to get its contents back under seal, but forgiveness.
+
Iraqis must make peace, or separate into mutually independent groups, or triumph brutally, one group over another. But triumphalism brings only a cessation of active hostilities, not the peace that a democratic society must have, the peace of equals forgiving each other.
+
The United States has always had a sense of itself as a new beginning, a very special place where humankind can create heaven on Earth by overthrowing the old orders of political, economic, and social injustice as would allow people to treat each other fairly, which is the only way so many different groups as are here could live in peace. We have nothing on Iraq in that department. Baghdad means "Gift of God", and the nature of that gift was clarified with a change of name when the Abbasids moved the capital of the Caliphate there in 762 A.D.: "Medinat al-Salaam", "City of Peace". Would that it were, today.
+
Federalism is the only hope for Iraq. Three triumphalist groups cannot share the same turf. Each must have its own. "Good fences make good neighbors." In political terms, good state boundaries make good neighbors, for each group can feel secure in its own homeland, and then reach across state lines as equals, not in a numerical sense, because Shiites are much more numerous than the Sunnis of the remainder of Iraq (the great preponderance of Kurds are Sunni), but in the sense of having equal human value, having as much to offer, and being as worthy of respectful attention to their suggestions as anyone else. This is why we have two houses in our national legislature, one in which each state is indeed equal to each other in a numerical sense and the other in which the weight of numbers counts but does not trump. That is exactly the kind of government Iraq needs if it is to emerge from its own "long national nightmare".
+
In this difficult time, Iraqis need to heed the words of Jesus in the Beatitudes. Perhaps it will be easy for them to do so if they remember that Jesus was a Hebrew, and the Hebrews originated in Iraq. Moreover, Islam accords special prominence to Jesus as a prophet who was taken alive into Heaven and will descend to Earth with the Mahdi to destroy the anti-Christ and bring peace to the world. It should thus be easy for Moslems to heed the Beatitudes that Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount. Secular Iraqis as much as secular Americans can remove the religious aspect and aspire to the moral teachings, the decent treatment of one another that a moral leader calls us to:

5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
5:4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
5:7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

As Mahatma Gandhi cautioned, 'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.' At end, then, if there is to be peace in Iraq, not just the momentary absence of open warfare, there must be pardon.
+
Americans must not see amnesty for insurrectionaries as surrender, if it brings peace. The British would have loved to do to George Washington what the Iraqi government did to Saddam. That would no more have brought peace across the Atlantic than the execution of Saddam has brought peace across group boundaries in Iraq. American triumphalism cannot bring peace to Iraq. Even if we could pour a million men (yes, men) into Iraq and disarm every single Iraqi, that would not bring peace to Iraq. Peace requires pardon. Expect it. Accept it. Embrace it.
+
(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", has reached a new milestone: 3,000 — for Israel.)




- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:34 PM