The Legacy of War

My name is John WorldPeace. I am a Houston attorney. I changed my name from Kenneth Wolter to John WorldPeace in April 1988 as a commitment to peace. I changed my name a year after I was divorced from my wife of seventeen years and just a few weeks before I turned forty. I am an advocate for peace but I am not a pacifist. I served as a U S Army sergeant from October 1970 to May 1972. I have three sons who served in the Marine Corps. I have been married for 14 years to my current wife. We have six children and seven grandchildren between us. I have never used illegal drugs. I am 53.

I have been running for governor of Texas since January 1, 2001. The election is in November 2002.

I am uniquely qualified to be a public servant in these times by virtue of the fact that I have served in the military, believe in America but at the same time I am committed to increasing the peace within the world society.

I believe that we must bring the World Trade Center murderers to justice but I believe that it should be as a world wide police action and not a unilateral military incursion into countries who have not declared war on the United States. I believe that we must address the real motivating issues that are driving these terrorists. I believe that if the FBI had admitted to wrong doing at Ruby Ridge and Waco before Tim McVeigh blew up the Murrah building instead of after his death, that tragedy would have been avoided. Tim McVeigh needed to die for his acts. The terrorist who kill around the world need to be punished for their acts.

But unless we address the grievances of these terrorist, we are going to have crop dusters spraying poisons and viruses on people at sporting events, more buildings are going to be blown up, and if we are so stupid as to use nuclear weapons as Donald Rumsfield has suggested, then the terrorists are going to build a nuclear bomb and wipe one of our big cities off the map. You do not need a rocket or an airplane delivery system for a nuclear device. All you need is a suitcase.

If the President goes off killing innocent civilians he is going to create even more terrorist because I can assure you that if you kill all my family without cause, then I will have little to live for and the prospect of killing the families of those who killed mine would seem logical and just.

We cannot stop terrorist from retaliating against us. We must address the root causes of terrorism as well as the terrorists themselves. If we use the military to kill terrorists, then we are going to bring our children home in body bags and we are not going to be safe anywhere in America.

Nine One One changed the world forever and the military tactics of the 20th century are not going to work on the terrorists in the Third Millennium. The time has come for new leadership. The time has come to prioritize peace by seeking to understand what is actually motivating these terrorist before we begin to sacrifice our children and kill innocent civilians. 

It is time to quit demonizing entire races and religions based on the acts of a few criminals who happen to be members of those races and religions. It is time to admit that we have birthed our own terrorists, Tim McVeigh, and killing his father and friends would serve no purpose. It is time to admit that we must involve the whole world in the terrorist problem so that these terrorist will know that there is truly no place to hide. It is time to demand an end to nations supporting terrorists but it is not time to pass judgment on these nations without the facts. We cannot rush to judgment without becoming just like those whom we detest and seek to destroy. 

You do not retaliate against random acts of terrorism by focused acts of genocide and religious persecution. Criminal acts are dealt with by the police and justice is carried out by society as a whole against the transgressors. The world has the ability to track down planetary sociopaths and bring them to justice.

Justice must be done and terrorism must be stopped. The question is how do we accomplish our goal. I believe that we must go slowly and cautiously in order not to create retaliatory scenarios that we cannot live with. Ending terrorism is a global concern and we should attempt to solve the destruction of the World Trade Towers first by involving the entire world as opposed to a few friendly nations. If and only if that solution is not viable, then we need to act accordingly and decisively even if we must do it alone.

From The Book of Peace: The WorldPeace Peace Page
by John WorldPeace

14 WAR

War is, in reality, one human being murdering another human being. 

War is generally defined as armed conflict between nations, but it is  individual human beings who do the actual murdering and the dying.

War is one man murdering one woman, one woman murdering one man, one man murdering one man, one woman murdering one woman, one  child murdering one adult, one adult murdering one child. War is one  human being murdering another human being.

Whatever the stated causes of war, the truth is that it is nothing more  than the sacrifice of our children. It is our children who we allow to be  murdered in war and their families must then live with an inconsolable  sorrow. How can this be acceptable to anyone?

War is the result of frustrations in a society that comes to believe that  there is no other solution to a particular social problem. No nation goes  to war with clean hands. No nation murders on the battlefield with  justification.

Powerful nations murder because they think they can get away with it. They may impose their will on the survivors, but they simultaneously  sow the seeds of future wars. The thought that murder is a solution to  social disagreements is tragically laughable. 

How can we delude ourselves into believing that if a person lives next  door to us, he has the same rights as we do, but if he lives in a foreign  land, his life has no value? Is human value, in truth, based upon the  physical location of one's home?

We are all God's children and we are each at one with each other. The  murder of anyone sends irrevocable and intolerable vibrations throughout  the world. The legacy of violence is always more violence and the legacy  of war is always more war.

We are at one with God and at one with each other and we can never  justify the murder of any human being. Words like justice or God's will  can never justify the great tragedy of humanity murdering itself.

As members of a World Society, we must embrace the great moral  condemnation of murder as the legacy of war. There is no victory in  war without murder and there can never be victory of any kind with  murder.

Inner peace comes in the knowing that when we all accept each and  every human being as our neighbor, not only will we refuse to murder  anyone, we will never have to concern ourselves that our life's blood, our  children, will be murdered by anyone else.