Run for Sean

One of Chestnut Hill’s best traditions will take place this Saturday. The Run for the Hill of it, now in its 17th year, will take place at 8:30 a.m. at Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue.

What makes the run, a 5-mile race and 1-mile fun walk, so enduring is that the proceeds help a family of a child who requires special medical needs, and the fact that it is organized by volunteers.

This year’s beneficiary, Sean Mahoney, an Oreland resident, is celebrating his sixth birthday this week. Despite losing a leg to soft-tissue cancer and battling a form of leukemia, Sean — using crutches — recently ran around a meeting of the Rotary Club of Chestnut Hill cheerfully greeting everyone and assisting his parents Bill and Joanne with a presentation about his condition.

A wide assortment of volunteers, led by McNally’s Tavern manager Anne McNally, help organize the run, collate packets and register runners. Money raised at the run goes to Rotary Club of Chestnut Hill’s foundation and then to the beneficiary’s family, enabling contributors to get a tax deduction.

With your help, whether you run, walk or make a contribution, Sean will have as bright a future as he so optimistically presented to the Rotarians.

Registration will take place on Thursday, July 29, from 2 until 8 p.m. at Borders Book Shop, 8701 Germantown Ave. and on race day from 7 to 8 a.m., near the starting line at Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. For more information, log on to www.runforthehillofit.org.

Katie Worrall

Opinion:A war based on lies

By Rudy Sprinkle

In commenting on the war in Iraq, William Will [Local, letters, July 15, 2004] articulately stated a position of proactive internationalism. Yes, our policy throughout the 20th century was one of proactive internationalism on behalf of human rights. It was in our national interest. However, many of us see the reality as quite different. History shows that as often as not, our professed national interest was not a defense of human rights or democracy. It was power politics. Wilson, for example, sent troops into Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Panama and Nicaragua. The real outcome was not a stable, humane Latin America but a volatile Latin America, for decades. Certain countries were called “banana republics” for good reason. They were controlled by international fruit corporations, which were backed up by American soldiers. During these and other “interventions,” people died, but that was “the price of freedom.” Freedom would be built from the outside in, not as we [in America] did it, from the inside out. We spent over 200 years developing our democracy and then got the idea that a little invasion could inject democracy wherever we wanted. It hasn’t worked.

Then there is the human cost of these wars. We don’t like to talk of such things. Our leaders prevent us from seeing dignified pictures of American coffins and television rarely embeds reporters in neighborhoods that are being bombed. Talk or no talk, this war is a human tragedy. Bombs (“air strikes”) are launched from on high. The destruction and death on the ground are massive and not selective. Think about it. More conventional ordnance was dropped on Iraq in about four weeks than all of WWII. This is not incidental to the discussion. It is not incidental to the citizens of Baghdad. What must it be like to be a parent in Baghdad these days? Please try to imagine. These are real people. Their children are real. The bombs come from the United States, beacon of humanity. The human cost is not incidental to those American soldiers who have lost limbs, or sight or both. We have many of them.

There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was not funding terrorism. He was not a fundamentalist. There were no chemical weapons. There were no nuclear weapons. The “smoking gun” was not about “to turn into a mushroom cloud,” as repeated by Condelezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney and George H. W. Bush. Much blame has been laid on the CIA, but this much is clear: there was sufficient intelligence to give a lie to the president’s reasons for war. The argument that this war was primarily in the cause of Iraqi freedom took root after all other reasons were proven false. The truth is: the current administration started planning this war when it came into office. Magazine articles had been written and speeches made suggesting that a dramatic strategic move into the Middle East could change the balance of power in our favor. Overthrow Saddam and the Middle East will be our oyster. The planning was well underway before September 11th. This is not a war on terrorism. It is a war based upon lies.

Saddam was a mad man. He was not good for his country. But we must not confuse a just cause, the end of Saddam’s rule, with a just war. Saddam and his rule would not have been there without our help. Saddam and the state of Iraq were creations of “western democracies.” Using geopolitical logic the state of Iraq was created and later Saddam funded. Our leaders became aware of Saddam’s sadism. We were aware of chemical weapons programs. And during this time we gave him money, lots of money. Rumsfeld and Cheney met personally with Saddam. Why? Because, we liked him. He was a countervailing power to Iran. He made war against Iran. Our leaders called this good. This was a “good” real politic position. It was in our national interest; or was it? Our national interest would have been better served by the exportation of better living not better death. After September 11, we had the sympathy and support of the world. We don’t now. Why? We took the ideology of the enemy (power comes out of the barrel of a gun) and became him. Military might has not made us right. It has made us mean.

Our real strength comes from the American ideal. It is not in our national interest to be an imperial power or to pursue war against a country just because we can. It is in our national interest to pursue policies that help bridge the economic gap between us and the third world and to be boldly honest about despots, even despots who hate our enemies. Honesty is a lethal weapon. A war based upon lies only hurts us. For some reason, our presidents rarely use the bully pulpit to champion human rights. They rarely take on those who ignore democracy and human rights. If they did, Saudi Arabia, China, North Korea, and others would not like what was said. The truth is: our war on Iraq has destroyed our human rights credibility. So--let’s talk about an internationalism that supports human rights, not oil; promotes democracy not dictators; isn’t afraid of the truth, tells it to the whole world; and is really concerned about the Baghdad family with children.

Rudy Sprinkle
Philadelphia