A "Department of Peace" should be a part of the "Department of Defense", really. Most problems do not yield well to force. and a nation can defend itself by having a military AND other means of conflict resolution.

And anything which could provide more research, insight and understanding into the processes of mediation and reconciliation would be a benefit.

Maturity has been described as being able to empathize with the discomfort of others, a trait clearly lacking in advocates of force as an early resort. The innocent are the ones who suffer.

One of the HZers early on said she was a strong advocate of war against Saddam because he was a dictator and she hated dictators. Saddam died once (in a legal lynching), and innocent people have died hundreds of thousands of times, 2,000,000 people have fled Iraq and millions more have been displaced internally. Those are people, by the way, living, breathing, feeling folks with families and friends.

Where is the empathy in that? If Saddam could have been removed by other means, would that have been more humane, reasonable?

Of course.

And, we know that Cheney and McBush had other options but wanted war, so it wouldn't have done any good there. US Conservatives love to use force, but most people like to solve problems without doing any more harm then necessary.

Arf