Free Republic

'If you want peace, prepare for war," counseled the Roman general Flavius Vegetius Renatus more than 1,600 years ago, echoing the sage advice given nine centuries earlier by the Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. But in a film I saw recently at Oslo's Nobel Peace Center, this ancient wisdom was turned on its head: "If you want peace," it said, "prepare for peace." This purports to be wise counsel, a motto for the millennium. In reality, it's wishful thinking that doesn't follow logically from the history of war, the real lesson of which is the one that Sun Tzu and...

The Silver City Town Council has adopted a resolution calling for the federal government to form a U.S. Department of Peace. The council voted 3-1 Tuesday night in favor of the resolution, which asks Congress to establish a Cabinet-level department geared toward peaceful resolution of conflicts around the world. A supporter of the resolution argued that the council should consider measures that aren't focused strictly on local issues. ''A lot of polls lately show people have lost faith in the upper levels of government,'' Larry Weiss of Silver City said. ''The one government body that's retained trust is the local...

With this nation embroiled in what threatens to be an interminable "War on Terrorism," an idea put forward last year by Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich has considerable appeal. Kucinich, who was the one candidate in the Democratic primaries to unfailingly promote the party's traditional Franklin Roosevelt liberalism, proposed the establishment of a Department of Peace. Now he has introduced in the House HR 2459, a bill that would establish a Peace Department, adding a new Cabinet post to the executive branch of government. The Department of Peace would "advise the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State on all...

Just this month, the long-shot Democratic Party presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich proposed a new cabinet-level department in the executive branch of the federal government: the Department of Peace.  Forty-six other Democrats (and exactly zero Republicans) agreed to co-sponsor his proposal, which would create a 'Secretary of Peace,' charged with preventing both domestic and foreign violence through enlightened social policies.  This department would operate in conjunction with and get its ideas from a government-run Peace Academy, set up to offer four-year 'peace studies' degrees.  The department would also provide grants for peace studies departments in universities throughout America, and encourage peace...