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January 19, 2003
The lead is the hardest part to write in a column. That’s those first few words or sentences that are supposed to have a hook bringing the reader into communion with the writer. Now, news writing was always easier. You have the five Ws and an H to contend with: Who? What? When? Where? Why? And How? The old news style was called pyramid in that the first paragraph told everything and each sentence and paragraph after that was amplification. You could begin cutting from the bottom and the first paragraph would stand alone if necessary. Magazines, most notably Time, changed news writing to make it more narrative. Some times you had to read half the article to know what it was about. But column writing was always
different, like an essay developing a thought.
Often in the newspaper days of Underwood typewriters and copy
paper cut from the waste scraps of the huge rolls fed to hungry presses. It was not unusual to type one word, take the paper from the
typewriter and File 13 it. When
I finally got the lead I wanted, I went ahead with the column. Now that I’ve gotten by the
“lead” of this column maybe I can finish what has been a
procrastinated opinion. It is painful. It
hurts to look back and see the anger and destruction of the world of the
Twentieth Century, and frightening to look at the volatile start of the
Twenty-First Century. In
World War II, America faced the most powerful and dangerous nations on
earth. We destroyed their military machine and rebuilt them as
allies in a commercial society. But
peace was only on paper. Communism and capitalism faced off
in a nuclear arms buildup for the Cold War.
A generation of children was taught to hide under a table as if
that would escape the radiation of an atomic bomb.
At mid-Twentieth Century, many felt the world wouldn’t last
much longer. We did manage
to get by another half century without destroying the planet we call
home. You would think we had learned
something. We haven’t. As the century turned, the ancient
hatreds of Jews and Arabs in the Middle East flamed more and more.
Instead of trying diplomacy, the two sides and the rest of the
world let it spin out of control with the slaughter on both sides.
America and Israel were considered to be on one side and
Palestinians and Arabs on the other. The odor of death and prejudice reached from the boardrooms
on Wall Street to the caves of Afghanistan.
The attack on the World Trade Center was not from an organized
nation. It was from
organized hatred. The
Muslin religious fanatics saw America and what we stand for as evil.
We have answered hatred with hatred.
Flames with flames. No bin Laden could destroy America.
He sewed the seeds for our lives to change in the name of
fighting terrorism. Even
worse, he has brought America and the world to the brink of a nuclear
arms race, even possibly nuclear war.
American liberty has been stifled by suspicions of terrorism in
every hamlet. Hatred of
anyone looking foreign or worshiping another God has flared.
Our government can’t find the one man we want—bin Laden—and
has settled on an old, visible enemy—Saddam Hussein. Democracy and capitalism has worked
for us. But that doesn’t
mean the rest of the world is breathlessly waiting for a government
change. There is no sign of it working in many nations of Africa,
South America and Asia. We
can’t force it down the Chinese throat or demand the princes of Saudi
Arabia accept it. They have
a right to their own destinies. So
do the people of Iraq. If
and when they are ready to change leadership, they will.
We have no right to appoint ourselves as the world’s arbitrator
of moral government. People keep talking of the threat
of war. The only threat
I’ve heard is America building its military might on the borders of
Iraq. The rest of the world is behaving with more sanity than our
leaders in Washington. Both
parties are so busy beating war drums they forget. Anyone who saw Hiroshima or the
bombed out cities of London and Berlin after World War II doesn’t want
that again. Anyone who was
shot at or had friends killed in combat would prefer peace to war.
No one has proven yet that war is the only solution to combating
terrorism, which is what this is supposed to be about.
No one has found Saddam’s war plans for the invasion of New
York City. At best if we invade Iraq, they
will destroy the oil fields and America may $5 a gallon for gas.
This would please the oil men in Washington and Texas but not the
American people. We would
have to occupy the country into the indefinite future.
That price tag would not be cheap.
In two short years, we have gone from a budget surplus to raising
the debt season in anticipation of a $6.4-trillion deficit.
There will be casualties and body bags.
The same people supporting the president now will be shouting for
his scalp when casualties rise. Instead of being a big bully
rattling atomic bombs at countries we forbid to have them, let us
concentrate on our own country and making life better and safer for our
people. Let us be a
showplace of democracy and capitalism with security that the world would
want to follow. Let us be
the friend of other nations, not demanding that everyone measure up to
our contrived yardstick.
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