Peace as an Election Ploy                                                                                                     In his 1968 run for the White House Richard Nixon declared himself as “the peace candidate” and the American people, disgusted and confused by the Vietnam War, ascended him to the Presidency primarily on that promise. History proved however that his declarations as being “the peace candidate” during that election were a cynical ploy to win; he actually had intended to “bomb the hell out of them” and force the North Vietnamese into surrender. “Peace with Honor” Five years later in 1973, and after a brutal bombardment campaign failed to break the will of the Vietcong, Mr. Nixon began to talk about “Peace with honor.” Saigon was about to fall and the president was looking for ways to acknowledge the failure of American interventionism in South East Asia. Nixon however, could not bring himself to use words such as failure, defeat, settlement or anything else that acknowledged the reality of the situation. Had his approval rating been higher or had he been a more self assured five star general and war hero like his previous boss, Dwight Eisenhower, he may have been confident enough to admit the realities to the American people.

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 Calming The Fearful Mind: A Zen Response to Terrorism.  Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press: Berkeley, CA, 2005. On An Idyllic Fall Day In September Seven years have passed since those haunting days in September 2001 when the airplanes hit the twin towers in NYC and Washington DC. As I sit here on this idyllic summer afternoon, it could even be today, and thousands could be going to their deaths.  In fact, in Afghanistan right now, they are. For terrorism is not over. To read the newspapers  it has barely gotten started.

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