c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS.)

UNDATED _ We can blame our inclinations on our parents who first taught us to fear strangers. Later we learned that people who are not like us don’t always see things our way and may mean taking time to negotiate or compromise our dearly beloved beliefs.

From there it is a short step to making people who are simply different from us into enemies _ often easier than expending the energy to make them friends.

And there are those who benefit from bitterness, hatred, and even the war that may result when two people or peoples demonize one another. Politicians win elections by making us believe they will save us from lurking enemies.

Fundraisers have long known that money pours in faster when you are fighting a bad guy.

So why has it been so difficult for Americans to see Iraqis as our enemy?

To be fair, even the administration has made the conflict more about Saddam Hussein than his people as reports from international agencies, including agencies within the United Nations itself, have shown the U.N.’s economic sanctions have hurt the population more than the dictator provoking them.

But when the prospect of killing some of those same people in order to accomplish a higher good was raised, Americans recoiled. We no longer seem willing to sacrifice some innocent lives as the price of foreign policy.

And perhaps, at a time when the media has been criticized for its reporting on the alleged presidential misconduct, it should also be noted the press played a critical role in turning the tide of public opinion toward the Iraqi people.

Sheila MacVicar, ABC foreign correspondent, was perhaps most pivotal in presenting television viewers with images of ordinary people responding to harsh times and the horrifying prospect of war.

Looking all-American and never appearing on camera swathed in a chador, she represented every citizen back home when she sat and talked to a young Iraqi couple too impoverished by sanctions to go forward with their wedding. She met with groups of men on the street, asking them questions that seemed to provoke no anger or disrespect, but a deep sadness.

And when she showed an extended family pooling their meager resources so their military-age son could escape the coming war, she connected every family in the U.S. to that family in Iraq.

While her colleagues were tapping White House contacts for the latest rumors, MacVicar did something every viewer of network news wants and needs _ she educated us about the human side of a confusing foreign policy crisis. And in doing so she helped us see these people are not so different from us, so they could hardly be our enemies.

Some would say such coverage only helps Hussein’s agenda. But in a world that seems to have few clear issues, that type of reporting helped us all see for ourselves what the issues really are.

Are we, as a nation, willing to defend a policy that does not first protect people like us? Can we ignore the dreams of young couples and the fears of mothers and fathers? Do we want the American way of life to mean we will stay strong by keeping others weak?

Our enemies are no longer competing super powers. Instead, the world seems to have a fair share of tyrants who are as much the enemies of their own people as they are of America.

We need to develop new ways to deal with such corrupt leadership. But we have to do it without hurting the populations of these lands who have suffered enough.

What is America’s role in the post-Cold War era? Perhaps we should aspire to be the world’s peacemaker instead of the world’s police force. And perhaps we should concentrate the efforts of the media and our government on learning more about who our real enemies are and are not.

DEA END BOURKE.