The esoteric map of evolution posits that humanity still needs wars to develop itself — for humans to be in full flower as a loving and compassionate species, we need great shocks to wrench us from lesser positions. But, is some worst-case scenario what will have to happen to get humanity over a blindness where war is an ordinary resort?

I think what makes me most incredulous about our warpath is the inattention to the fact that an Iraqi life is as valuable as an American o­ne. It is contemptible not to think this way. How can Bush-the-Christian consider Iraqi lives collateral damage, to be calculated as some objective unit of information, and not as people who are as precious as Americans? Would o­ne side here in America ever open fire o­n another side — like the Democrats against the Republicans, even for the humanitarian reason of stopping aggression? As contemporary philosopher, David Spangler, says, “All war is civil war, and we all suffer and lose.”

I've been concentrating in my posts more o­n what to do to get us out of our situation than o­n passing along pieces about the nightmare we are in, but I want to keep some track going where I'm mirroring what is. And, given I'm putting up few posts in this category, I want each one to be particularly telling. So it is with this transcript of Morning Edition, March 12 o­n NPR, Possible Worst-Case Scenarios if War with Iraq Occurs,  sent to me by Maireid Sullivan. The speaker is Retired Colonel Mike Turner, General Schwarzkopf's personal briefing officer during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

Here's an excerpt:

Perhaps we can pull this off, but here's a far worse scenario that's at least as likely. Within hours of our attack, Saddam launches Scuds o­n Israel. Israel's right-wing government launches a full-scale attack o­n Iraq, creating a holy war nightmare. Saddam, threatened with his own survival, uses chemical and biological weapons and human shields just as he has in the past. He torches his own oil fields, thousands of his own people are killed. Photos of American soldiers amid landscapes of Iraqi civilian bodies blanket the world press which aligns unanimously against the US. The US is condemned by NATO and the UN.

The war ends within a few weeks, but the crisis deepens. The US is left to administer a political vacuum in Iraq. Iran is emboldened to help the Shiites in the south. Disease breaks out, food and water are contaminated and the cost of the war skyrockets. The US economy is dealt a body blow, but the administration can find no credible way out. Britain's Prime Minister Blair is voted out of office.

Meanwhile, al-Qaeda, seeing an opportunity due to a shift in US focus, attacks a major US target. North Korea, emboldened by the distraction, ignores diplomatic efforts to restrain its development of nuclear weapons and begins to export weapons-grade plutonium to terrorists.

These are not remote possibilities, but in my view reasonable, possibly even likely outcomes.

I was looking o­n the Net for a particular Dennis Kucinich speech that shows how spiritually minded he is, when I came across something in his Martin Luther King Day speech that echoes what I wrote in COULD WE SPARK A CAMPAIGN?. After I saw the movie, 8 Mile, what I wrote about came from thinking the country could not sustain with pockets that are as abysmal as the o­ne in Detroit — and that cleaning up our pockets could be a tipping point to cleaning up the world and making us a species that can live together in peace. What I wrote was through a lens of altruism, where the rich need to take poverty o­n. Kucinich suggested it be addressed from the even deeper perspective of human rights. He said:

Once again the hopes of people of two nations are being smashed by weapons in the name of eliminating weapons. Let us abolish weapons of mass destruction at home. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Hunger is a weapon of mass destruction. Homelessness is a weapon of mass destruction. Poor health care is a weapon of mass destruction. Poor education is a weapon of mass destruction. Discrimination is a weapon of mass destruction.Let us abolish such weapons of mass destruction here at home.

Let us use hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, which some would cast upon Iraq in bombs and warring troops, instead for the restoration of the American Dream, to rebuild our economy and to expand opportunities for all. We have a duty to assert our human needs as a people and not to yield them for the base concerns of an unresponsive government: We have a right to a job. We have a right to decent housing. We have a right to health care. We have a right to food fit to eat, air fit to breathe and water fit to drink. Peace is a civil right which makes other human rights possible. Peace is the precondition for our existence. Peace permits our continued existence.

The Kucinich speech I actually was looking for is “Spirit and Stardust,” from the middle of last year. I guarantee that you never have read a speech from any politician that has the depth and breadth of this o­ne.  Have you ever heard a politician say anything like this?

We need to remember where we came from; to know that we are o­ne. To understand that we are of an undivided whole: race, color, nationality, creed, gender are beams of light, refracted through o­ne great prism. We begin as perfect and journey through life to become more perfect in the singularity of “I” and in the multiplicity of “we”; a more perfect union of matter and spirit.

The media are treating the Kucinich candidacy as if he has no chance to win. I wonder. That Paul Ray survey a few years ago, that most of my readers will be familiar with, made big noise telling us there were enough “Cultural Creatives” in the United States to elect a president. Could Kucinich, who figures to get all the votes of such people, succeed out of who he is and not what he spends to sell himself? Maybe he's got his candidacy sewed up already, and doesn't have to waste his energy fundraising. It would be interesting if o­ne of the big progressive websites opened a voting opportunity for us, where the objective was to count votes of people already sold — with an honor system not to vote more than o­nce, so an assessment useful to the campaign might be made.

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