Mainers’ views on conflict in Iraq run gamut

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Conversations with a dozen Mainers about the purpose of America’s continued presence in Iraq bring a bevy of responses, much like the weather: Some say the reasons are clear; others say they are still cloudy.

How individuals react to daily developments in Iraq depends on how their flags blow in the wind.

Down East, a retired four-star Army general in Gouldsboro spends his days working on projects to keep area teenagers engaged and away from drugs. It keeps him involved locally while the war wages overseas.

“I think what President Bush did was right,” Gen. John Deane said last week. “I support what he did, and I think what he’s doing now is right.

“It seems like a good body of the leadership, both Democrats and Republicans, believed there were weapons of mass destruction, either imminent or in hand. We went there to keep us from getting struck with those things.”

One year on, that reasoning doesn’t sit well with Al Larson, president of the Veterans for Peace chapter in Bangor.

“We have a little more perspective now, but that doesn’t make it any better,” said Larson, whose group formed about a year ago. “All the reasons that were brought up by the administration 13 or 14 months ago are pretty much still there. But now, we’re looking at things differently.”

In Farmington, Lee Sharkey sensed that the administration’s reasons for going to war weren’t right “long before the invasion.”

An English teacher at the University of Maine at Farmington, Sharkey also stands every Friday with the Farmington formation of Women in Black, the international group organized in Israel in 1977, emerging in America at the time of Sept. 11, 2001.

“We see another world in which war isn’t the basis of negotiations among people, cultures or nations,” Sharkey said. “I think the answers [to the crisis] have been clear since long before the war, but those aren’t the answers the administration gives.”

In Damariscotta, Gretchen Hull believes what is clearer than ever is “how the public fear was orchestrated and manipulated to let the war go ahead … the discussion of terrorism was fanned to support the president’s decision to go to war.”

Hull’s response was organizing Bridges for Peace, which began in October 2002 as a one-bridge stand in her town. Today, Bridges for Peace groups assemble every Sunday at 40 or 50 sites throughout Maine.

In Portland, Greg Field is executive director of Peace Action, a statewide membership organization committed to national and international issues of justice. He also wrestles with the country’s continued commitment to Iraq.

“The administration has taken the wrong turn in Iraq, but it doesn’t see an immediate way out,” Field said. “At this point, the U.S. has got to find an exit that can bring in international institutions to help create a safe and stable Iraq, for the people of Iraq. But right now, I don’t see that.”

John Baker in Bangor does.

“The problem is getting straightened out, although nothing gets straightened out easily after a war,” said Baker, a 1942 West Point graduate and retired Army colonel.

“But I hear from e-mails from men over there that the lights are on, the schools are going, the water’s flowing.

“It’s quite clear to me we have done the right thing. That we have not found the weapons [of mass destruction] is understandable … it really is not understandable to me why people don’t give our government a little more credit.”

Tony Aman, an insurance agent in Penobscot, doesn’t care for the administration’s war rhetoric. He spends his personal time supporting statewide rallies and public events for peace.

“We learn the same lessons over and over and over again,” Aman said. “It all adds to the collective awareness of people around the world – that unless we pay extremely close attention to officials and those who run the government, then they’re going to do what’s in the best interests of themselves and their power base.”

By serving as executive director of the Maine Council of Churches, Tom Ewell in Portland struggles with what he calls the “central moral argument” of America’s presence in Iraq.

“Has life been improved for the Iraqis?” Ewell asked. “As a business question, this may be all about oil. And as a control issue, it may be about dominance. But the primary consideration here is whether this has been good for the Iraqi people.”

Ilze Petersons has worked with the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine in Bangor since its start 16 years ago.

She is troubled by the way the government “has kept changing the reasons for why we’re in Iraq.”

“At first we were there to find the weapons,” Petersons said. “But now we are there to oversee the regime change. We are all glad to see that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power, but that wasn’t the reason given to the American people a year ago.”

In Houlton, Marilyn Roper’s group, Stand With Us For Peace, has graced the town’s Monument Park weekly for 23 months.

She wishes more would recognize, as another consequence of the war, that 7,000 to 10,000 civilians have died, one year after the invasion.

“All the Americans killed is a tragedy, but so too are the civilian losses,” Roper said.

Doug Allen, a University of Maine professor of philosophy in Orono, puts down the reasons for America’s presence there to the administration’s “arrogance.”

“I have never seen this level of anti-Americanism all over the world,” said Allen, who is using a year of sabbatical for world travel and research of peace issues. “There is a tremendous amount of arrogance that comes out of the conservative think tanks that coordinate the administration.”

Career diplomat Moorhead Kennedy of Mount Desert Island is letting this anniversary of war pass quietly.

When the Gulf War began, Kennedy found himself on WABC-TV in New York saying that attacking an Arab country was wrong.

“I was so criticized by those who said the president has all the facts,” Kennedy said. “But we are seeing today again that the minute you attack an Arab country, you make it much more difficult even to remain friendly with other Arab countries, because you are killing Arabs.

“And that’s not a good idea, if you can avoid it.”