MLK’s plea for peace ignored

President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, supported sanctions on Iraq even though half a million children died as a result. Though a hard choice, she said “the price is worth it.”

Behind Newtown tears, “President Obama claims he has the right to assassinate anybody he decides anywhere in the world, and he has been very busy doing just that with drones and other sophisticated methods. The killing is routine,” wrote Pennsylvania attorney Sanford Kelson for Counterpunch magazine. “Is it moral, or even possible, to have a heart so cold that we can kill children with reckless abandon overseas but at the same time protect children here?”

What part of this nightmare intertwines with Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of a different world without militarism, racism and materialism? One hopes this month’s MLK celebration will highlight his penetrating wisdom beyond another empty rendition of “I Have a Dream.” King’s dream of a revolution in values lies in the ashes of Obama’s nightmare wars overseas.

I’m 71, and remember that King was denounced by most national civil rights leaders for his condemnation in 1967 of the Vietnam War. King’s anti-war message is still unpopular in Fairchild Air Force Base-friendly Spokane.

Chuck Armsbury

Colville