DAVIS: Another war on the horizon?

The next war is going to be Israel and Iran but it might not be a conventional war, Israel may choose to use nuclear weapons to eliminate Iran's entrenched nuclear facilities. I know it sounds unthinkable but Israel is very serious and very consistent in the alarms they are raising about Iran's intent to build nuclear weapons and to attack Israel and the United States. Let's hope Iran comes to its senses and stops enriching uranium. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com

Sorry, but, these wars are simply religious fanatics trying to force their 12th century ideals on the rest of the world. It is actually a war between civilizations and the western nations must face up to the fact and defeat it. These people do not recognize people freedoms nor civil rights and no government, only their ideal of the world.

Our war with the Islamic world is the result of cultural imperialism particularly as it concerns family life and women's issues. Given the breakdown of western families our way of life must appear pretty unattractive to the Islamic world. We're basically peddling divorce, promiscuity, the celebration of homosexuality, habitual gambling and substance abuse, and crushing indebtedness. Unable to target America directly, Israel is the Islamic world's whipping boy. (MARK KLEIN, M.D)

So Major ,as an unqualified long ago military with none of your appreciated service ,I ask sincerly . When they come to my neighborhood and kill people I know, like 9/11 I am supposed to "turn the other cheek" because we use their oil or did not give them enough $$$ in foreign aid or want freedom of religion they won't allow? I myself am not wired that way and I think I am alive because my ancestors felt the same way .

the premise of this article is really weird "We are today in one of the world's most violent and unstable periods since perhaps World War II." It's only 63 years since the end of WWII combat and this time today is only "... one of the ... most ....?" If that be the case, then the state in which we are in in perfectly normal. One can only fit a few 10 year periods into 63 years, and if they are all like now, then now is normal. Dumb article.

"Far more than presents this Christmas, we are in desperate need of the gift of peace." Amen! We will never achieve peace through war -- fighting and killing only perpetuate more fighting and killing. More than at any other time in the history of our nation we need strong leadership that advocates peace not war. "What is consistent about all these efforts is that they posit that to achieve peace, we must employ ever greater amounts of violence and force." This is the "solution" chosen by ilk like GW, Cheney, Hannity, Pruden, old Republicans, and most Washington Times readers -- who just don't get it and, left to their devices, would eventually lead our country to ruin much like the fate of the Roman empire. Thank God that GW, who once called himself the "war president", will soon be just a distant, bad memory. What this great nation needs is another Lincoln or Gandhi or Buddha or Christ to lead us to a peaceful future. Such a leader will take office on January 20th -- President Barrack Obama!! The future for America and the world has never looked brighter!! And once again we can be proud to call ourselves Americans!!

First, I would like to thank the major for his service. You have my gratitude and my prayers Sir, I don't think the parallels hold up. King was fighting for equality. there was no threat of annihilation facing his people.There is no profit in exploiting a dead share cropper. Nor is it much fun to be a 1st class citizen when all the 2nd class citizens are dead. He had the time to let peaceful protest work.And the essential ally of a free press.Ghandi faced a similar situation. No one in England was talking about wiping India off the face of the Earth. England wanted to preserve the empire. India wanted independence. No one in England wanted to annihilate the Indian people. Ghandi had the time and the essential ally of a free British to press needed for peaceful protest to work.Based on decades of support for terrorism and there genocidal rhetoric, I must regretfully conclude that a nuclear armed Iran will not give the Israeli people the luxury of time.Will the Iranian government let there people here of it even if Israel The USA and the entire civilized world raise up 100 Ghandis and Kings. How many American Presidents and Sec States have invested How much time effort & political capital in the quest for peace in the middle east. Also look at me. I am an ordinary citizen publicly disagreeing,with a field grade military officer. What would happen to someone who tried that in Iran.

DAVIS: Another war on the horizon? Maj Davis believes that in order to curb violence in the world, we need more leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, or Mohandas Gandhi--King's guide. To evaluate Maj Davis's belief, we need to turn off the blinding spotlight of celebrity-sainthood that remains focused upon Gandhi and King, and examine what they were actually doing. Gandhi and King employed the strategy of Satygraha to enable their powerless groups to overturn the existing power-structure. That is a cynical manipulative process whereby you deliberately provoke the other side into unleashing violence on you and your people under circumstances that would not seem to call for violence; and then you cry out for justice, in the form of changing the entire political-system. King's great successes rested upon three factors: first, his ability to search out the most unintelligent, rigid men in local Southern governments to be his boogeymen; second, his own charisma and great personal courage; and third, the fact that most of the major U.S. news-media and most of the federal government were already squarely on his side. Having selected his target with great care, King and his demonstrators would then goad that police chief or sheriff in that Southern town or city into overreacting badly, while the flashbulbs popped and the movie cameras whirred; and then King was home free. He was thereby guilt-tripping the American people into pressuring the government to give him whatever he wanted. Satyagraha is based squarely upon suckering your enemy into unleashing violence upon your people at the wrong time. That strategy succeeded brilliantly; and in this world, if it works, it wins. (Interestingly, when King tried to apply the same strategy to highlight de facto segregation in the North (specifically in Chicago), it failed spectacularly. There, vast numbers of locals of all stripes attacked him and his people, shutting down his demonstration. He never tried it again in the North.) I don't see how Satyagraha would work to cut down on the endless wars in this world. To cut back on the increasing tendency of the U.S. to go to war at the drop of a hat, I urge the Congress to read the U.S. Constitution, and then take back from our presidents the power to declare and/or wage war--which the Constitution says rests with the Congress alone. As Lord Acton noted, power swiftly goes to a man's head--and particularly to the head of a president; but Congress, on the other hand, consists of a whole bunch of people; and in this case, they as a group are far more likely to act rationally.