I was very grateful to read David Ignatius’s Jan. 5 op-ed, “Can the spread of war be stopped?.” He’s absolutely right in arguing “we have to admit to ourselves, as another year of bloody conflict begins, that the current model isn’t working. We need new rules at the United Nations to stop wars and a new framework for crisis management with allies and adversaries.”
What I don’t understand is why he fails to refer to the U.S. Institute of Peace, our established governmental organization whose central aim is to accomplish precisely what Mr. Ignatius recommended. In the 1980s, as the only pastor serving in a small Vermont town, I was asked to preside at a marriage ceremony in which the groom was serving as a mediator in Central America working for the U.S. Institute of Peace. I have since visited the truly impressive D.C. home of this organization and learned something of its even more impressive variety of conflict resolution programs and interventions.
Except for an occasional opinion solicited by a television news outlet, I have never heard mention of the U.S. Institute of Peace by our national leaders. Given the astute analysis Mr. Ignatius provided of the dangers of wars present and future, I beg that we encourage greater reliance on the U.S. Institute of Peace to help us chart a better course.
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John Benjamiin Pinder III, Lancaster, Pa.
What are those feelings you get deep inside you when you witness war? For most of us, one is empathy. Do you identify with the suffering? Throughout history, those feelings of “that could be me” have sustained us. There are love and charity as we repeatedly rush to help those in need. Hardships are woven as the base layer of our existence. How we met past challenges has brought our species to a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene. How will this epoch end? Will it be by an asteroid, a natural event, or will it be by man? Now is the time to choose.
It is time to put away the tools of war as well as the motives. David Ignatius asked in his op-ed, “Can the spread of war be stopped?” The answer is yes! Extend the NATO umbrella to any country reaffirming the U.N. Charter in word and deed. Choose an interim global government and enforcement arm. Respect borders. Nurture people and the planet. Do it now.
Roger Cain Jenkins, Prescott, Ariz.
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