In the weeks that followed September 11, we received the statements
of 18 of the living Nobel Peace Prize winners.
As time has moved on, there have been hard questions to be answered,
not only about September 11 but also about subsequent events .
People who normally consider themselves pacifists or who are vehemently
opposed to violence have had to examine, how do you respond to
the killing of 6000 innocent people? Or the killing of young vacationers
in Bali, or humanitarian workers in Iraq? People who support military
action are also having to ask themselves, what about the fact
that the victims of these wars are largely civilians? And are
we simply escalating the problem by reacting militarily?
For some of the Laureates, what they said after 9/11 is not what
they would say today. The universal good will and the outpouring
of support not just from these men and women but from people around
the world, has changed as our military responses to 9/11 have
met with disagreement.
But we
can still see through the statements of the Nobel Peace Prize
Laureates that they ask themselves the same types of questions
we ask ourselves. We can use their statements here to examine
what has happened since. And we can use the conversation with
these men and women that one of our readers aptly described as
"our most precious of human resources" to bring a range
of wisdom and experience to the discussion that is not available
elsewhere.
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