Five years of war with no peace in sight

Anti-war protesters in Washington


An Iraqi woman grieves, above

Tomorrow marks five years since this country invaded Iraq. On a bitterly cold January day in 2003, I marched in my first peace protest in Washington, naively sure that if enough people took to the streets, our government would stop beating the drums of war. There was no stopping them, no way to prevent what was to come: all of the senseless dying and misery and disruption of millions of lives for a purpose I still don't understand. In March of that year, Suzi and I marched again, but it was to no avail.

This is not the place for rants you've already heard. My political opinions don't much matter to anybody else. But it is the place for me to mark with great sorrow that once again, senseless violence and killing prevailed over other solutions, that war simply breeds hatred that leads to more war, that we never seem to learn. And I take cold comfort in foreseeing that it was all lunacy, a terrible mistake.

When I told Dad that I was planning to march in Washington, he gave me his blessing. So I joined hands with millions of people on this planet who still believe in giving peace a chance. Far from being the "lunatic fringe," these people were thoughtful, normal people who had no recourse but to use their feet, their voices, their right to peaceful protest, and it was a defining moment for me. Call me an idealist -- and I'll take it as a compliment.