My father just posted a piece called The Drums of War? Or the Bagpipes of Sorrow. An excerpt:

War with Iraq seems closer. I won't make a prediction, because I don't think such an event is certain. What is certain, however, is that the war as proposed, if it happens, will turn out to be a mistake. As is usual with human institutions, especially sitting governments with an agenda, the lessons of history are being ignored, and the Bush Adminstration gives uncontroverted evidence that it lives in fantasies about the world, not realities.

War,by its nature, is an event that cannot be controlled. All kinds of wise heads have their individual predictions, but let us keep in mind that one of the main themes is lack of agreement. This one thinks that will happen, while that one thinks this will happen. Clearly the Administration thinks it can accomplish certain ends by making war, and it relies on the Pentagon for ideas about what is needed in order for the war to be successful.

The thing is that the motive for the war is not real, but is itself imagined. The leader of Iraq is thought to be dangerous and needs to be replaced, and the weapons of mass destruction under his control destroyed or removed. Iraq's potential as an enemy is the reason we make war, not its factual nature as an active enemy. All the thinking / reasoning is based upon our self made images of what Iraq might do in the future that is dangerous, not on what they are doing in the present that is morally horrifying and destructive.

All of this, from the intentions of the Administration to the promises of the Pentagon, are completely in accord with the War in Vietnam, which we lost, and within which a whole generation of our youth were spiritually lost as well.

Read the rest at Hermit's Weblog.