King Conscience

One year before he was murdered, Martin Luther King spoke out against America's war in Vietnam “because”, he said, “my conscience leaves me no other choice”. King was compelled to speak out against “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government.” It was a difficult decision because he alienated President Johnson, who advanced civil rights laws and applied Federal government power to protect civil rights. He also knew that his stance would risk dividing the civil rights movement. But he listened to his conscience.

The parallels with Iraq are striking.

The Iraqis, like King said of the Vietnamese, “must see Americans as strange liberators". We helped liberate the Vietnamese from Japanese imperialism only to allow the return of French colonialism. Similarly, we liberated the Iraq from decades of tyranny under Saddam Hussein only to allow it to descend into violence that eclipses even Saddam's reign.

The people of the Middle East today, just as King said of the Vietnamese then, “may have justifiable reason to be suspicious of the good faith of the United States”. Our overweening obsession with oil is self evident and morally blinding.

The Bush administration would substitute “anti-terrorism” for civil rights, yielding “peace and anti-terrorism don't mix”. King said those who offer such false choices “do not know the world in which they live”. Bush's blundering misadventures has cost America much of the admiration and trust of the rest of the world. This has made the world a more dangerous place for all free thinking people.

Rename the Baghdad “Green Zone” a big “hamlet” and this quote is accurate today in Iraq:

“Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets.”

You can imagine a Sunni or Shiite leader echoing the sentiment of a Vietnamese Buddhist leader, quoted by King:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

King's invocation of scripture concluded like current opinions of Bush's desperate 'plan' to increase troops in Iraq:

“Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.'"

In this speech, King explicitly accepted his role as a preacher. He delivered his message with the force of convictions that he lived. Please follow the link above to his brilliant, moving, and still relevant speech. I like this photograph because he seems to be looking at us. Let's learn the lesson our King taught us: listen to your conscience.