"I've been thinking, we really should do something for our families about this thing in Colorado. I mean, you know, we are mental health workers, and the kids and the families, I'm sure have a lot of feelings and concerns. We should try to respond to them." These words were spoken to me by my boss this morning. As she spoke, two other colleagues nodded affirmatively, but I felt a sense of resistance.

Like others, I had been watching the TV news more than usual the past few days, trying to piece together what happened in Colorado. I had been troubled by the way psychological experts were trotted out to give simplistic answers about how to reassure kids and how to lessen the risk of this happening in "your" situation. As if Colorado isn't already "your" situation. Not wanting to be part of such a process, I thought, "What do I really have to say? Better just to stand in mute silence, than to provide a false reassurance in a situation which seem to demand that we face horrible truths."

But my boss persisted. So I promised to think about it and try to contribute to a discussion. My mind drifted back fifteen years, to an essay in which I attempted to explore the problem of parents wanting to reassure their children about the danger of nuclear war, when they, themselves, felt utterly helpless about the problem and were for the most part inactive and in denial. Maybe it was time to rework that essay.

"What do we tell our children about this week's events in Colorado, what do we tell to ourselves?" To start, I have to say that I don't like so-called "depth" psychology. I think it's a sham. I don't think mental health professionals have any special ability to see into others. If they want to be helpful, I think mental health experts should concentrate on examining the facts around them and looking into themselves. This is what I want to try to do.

As I was riding home, I was listening to a memorial service from Colorado in which the minister was urging his audience: "Do not answer evil with evil! Answer evil with good!" Do not answer evil with evil. Answer evil with good. How could I do that? Maybe one way was to stop, think, and try to understand what has been set before me.

There are some straight forward superficial facts which stare at me from the events in Colorado this week. A group of kids got involved in something where two of their number decided that they had lived long enough and were prepared to die in order to punish others whom they either had dehumanized, hated, or at the very least, had ceased to have any feeling for. No feeling for the people they chose to shoot. No feeling for the hurt and anguish they would cause their own friends and relatives, not to mention the friends and relatives of their victims. They had planned it out. The had stockpiled weapons. They had engaged in war games. They had bathed themselves daily in a media which justified sadistic acts toward people they hated.

Have I gone off here? Is what I'm saying wildly speculative? Or are these just readily observable facts about the people who were responsible for the murderous rampage this past week in Colorado?

Now the first thing that strikes me, is that what I have described above, with the exception of the actual shooting and the stockpiling of weapons -- all the rest of it -- is completely legal and permissible, if not acceptable, social activity throughout our society. And because of this, the next question people ask is: "But what made them do it? What made these kids different from all the others who don't go off ?" That is what people want us, the experts, to explain. "How do we identify the kids that are going to go off? Or how do we recognize when a kid is getting close, so we can intervene?" This is what we, mental health professionals, are asked.

My answer to anyone who asks me this is, "Please, find yourself another expert," because that is not where my mind goes. No. My mind is irresistibly drawn to a different set of questions.

My mind goes back to those readily observable facts -- a group of people who bathe in a media which justifies the murder of supposed enemies, a group that assembles a frightening arsenal of weapons and engages in war games, a group that numbs itself to the suffering that would be caused by making its fantasies a reality, numbs itself to the suffering of the friends and relatives of its victims. How does that happen? I go back to these facts and I think, "Wait a second. Who are we talking about here? What is the difference between the process of this so-called 'trench coat Mafia,' and the process by which the United States of America has come to be bombing civilians in Yugoslavia?"

Do not answer evil with evil? Answer evil with good? Where have we been? Do we really suppose that God has given us the right to divide up the world, and decide which enemies are to be answered with evil and which with good?

"But we are not targeting innocent civilians, like those kids were." These are some of the numbing words which allow us to do what we are doing. No, we aren't 'targeting innocent civilians'. No, we are releasing bombs onto targets in which we know some unknown number of innocent civilians are going to be hit. Is it because it is an 'unknown number', that we are able to be blind to the suffering of the loved ones whose friend or relative just happens to be in our bomb sight. I don't know what numbed those kids in Colorado. But I know something about what is numbing us.

I know some people are going to be upset by where my mind goes. "You are mixing up a political controversy with an obvious human tragedy." Numbing words. But I refuse to be numbed. The suffering that our military-industrial complex imposes on the world is enormous and overwhelming. I know people think, "What can we do about the war in Yugoslavia. At least here in Colorado is a problem we should be able to do something about."

Maybe, just maybe, it's the other way around. Almost a hundred and fifty years ago Harriet Beecher Stowe, in the midst of feelings of helplessness and anguish over slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law, wrote the following words:

But what can any individual do? Of that every individual can judge. There is one thing that every individual can do, -- they can see to it that they feel right. An atmosphere of sympathetic influence encircles every human being; and the man or woman who feels strongly, healthily and justly, on the great interests of humanity, is a constant benefactor to the human race. See, then, to your sympathies in this matter! Are they in harmony with the sympathies of Christ? or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy?

So I invite my reader to join in asking whether our sympathies in regard to what we are doing in Yugoslavia are in harmony with the sympathies of Christ --- or are they swayed and perverted by the sophistries of worldly policy? And I truly believe that by seeking to align our sympathies with Christ when it comes to our actions in Kosovo, we can ultimately influence future events in "Colorado".

Today, I read a important and disturbing article that appeared in the April 19th issue of The Nation magazine. It was written by Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne and is entitled "The Case Against Intervention In Kosovo". I urge anyone who is seriously concerned about the events in Colorado to read this article, because it very persuasively questions the supposedly humanitarian justification for our campaign in Yugoslavia, and suggests that our government's humanitarianism is really numbing window dressing for something else. Space does not permit to recount this article, but let me just quote to you the words of our Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, delivered to the Boston Chamber of Commerce last year. His comments may give insight into how and why Kosovo warrants our military intervention against Yugoslavia, while Washington turns a blind eye toward, and at times even aids and abets, similar acts of ethnic repression by friendly governments. Mr. Cohen argued that NATO expansion was a way of "spreading the kind of security and stability that Western Europe has enjoyed since after World War II to Central and Eastern Europe.... And with that spread of stability there is the prospect to attract investment." Cohen said that the Administration seeks to "discourage violence and instability -- instability which destroys lives and markets."

Having read this magazine article, I am sorry to say that I am convinced that the supposed justification for our bombing of Yugoslavia is political sophistry, numbing words from a President, a Congress, and a press that have become so incestuous that they long ago relinquished any moral rudder whatsoever on matters large and small.

I withdraw my support for our policy of war against Yugoslavia, and I urge you to read this article and perhaps do the same. In doing this I am trying to learn something from the events in Kosovo and Colorado. I am trying to set an example for my child and other children, and say to him and them, "I cannot make a safe world for you, so long as the world is unsafe for other children." I am trying to go back and pick up the abandoned teachings and sacrifices of two martyred leaders, President John F. Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

I go back to President Kennedy's June, 1963 speech at American University in which he urged us to commit ourselves to a vision of peace which was "not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war." I go back to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s idea that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." I go back to the concept that my evil is not different from my enemy's evil. I go back to one of the first rules of medicine - "Doctor, first heal thyself."

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