Among other influences, I am a product of the United States Information Services (USIS) program. Soon after WW II, resources were scarce in Naples, Italy. USIS made available to me, not propaganda, but a wealth of books. I devoured them.

We all talk peace. From the United Nations to City Halls to family parlors, we all talk peace. But, harsh as the expression might sound at first, we do not do peace. We seem to labor under the spell of The Great Rationalistic Illusion that it is enough to utter the word in order to achieve the goal. There are three actions we have to pursue, if we really want peace. We have to create three sets of teams for peace and justice -- and we have to endow them with sufficient resources to be effective.

We have to stop thinking that we have to destroy the town in order to save the town; that we have to destroy the country in order to make it safe for democracy. The Department of Defense can save us from attack, but it cannot bring peace to lands where there is no peace. It is only a Department of Peace that can bring peace abroad -- and in the long run it is the only instrument for mankind to win the war against terrorism.

Let us establish a Department of Peace right here in the United States. If we do that, it is reasonable to expect that England, and Germany, and France, and Italy, and perhaps even Russia and China will follow suit. Duplication of effort, redoubling of effort throughout the world should be welcomed.

Let us assist Palestinians to establish their own Department of Peace immediately thereafter. And of course, the third country that should be encouraged, persuaded, urged to establish a Department of Peace is Israel, and the fourth is Iraq, and the fifth is Sudan. We know the list.

The most important element in the chain of needs is that the Department of Peace, without resources, would be a mockery. But where do we find the resources, especially at a time of substantial deficits and budget cuts? Well, the first candidate is a voluntary -- free and willing -- transfer of, say, ten percent of resources from the current budget of the Department of Defense. The experts in this department will candidly tell you that it is impossible, with their means, to stop terrorism. What the voter has to see is that, given the proper means, it is possible to stop terrorism. We cannot give in to pessimism and despair.

Only a Department of Peace can plan for peace, by intimately knowing the geography, the history, and the culture of each county in which the USA is involved, by creating SWAT Teams for peace and justice for each country, then by training the people to carry out their mission of peace and justice, and finally endowing them with satisfactory intellectual and material means to achieve their goal.

The second suggestion is for the Department of Peace to create an appropriate number of SWAT teams for peace. (Would not ten percent of the people currently within the Department of Defense give an eyetooth for the transfer of their energies toward such a function?) Call them Circles of Love. I prefer to call them Mary's Messengers of Mercy, because Mary is the only person who is highly respected in all three monotheistic religions. If we monotheists truly honor her, she will be more easily honored by other religions as well.

The Circles of Love should do precisely what their name implies: They should create circles of love around hamlets, and villages, and cities, and nations where hate prevails today. The pacification program should proceed house by house.

Depending upon the case, each team should be composed of at least three volunteers -- one from each of the major faiths that prevail in the areas to be pacified. There must be no discrimination as to age or sex. The specific formation of the teams will depend on the particular needs to be addressed. Indeed, one need not even go abroad. With perhaps only minor modifications, the entire approach might also be used to help solve the problems of so many "downtown." areas in the world. In each nation there seem to be many areas in which peace does not reign.

The prerequisite should be a simple willingness to pray together with the victims of violence. The teams should implore for the shooting to stop -- and for the vicious circle of revenge to stop. No sane politics issues from the barrel of a gun.

It seems clear that the constant message of Mary is to spur us to create as much peace on earth as possible. The message is not new. What seems to be new is her insistence on the means we have to employ to achieve that aim. She seems to suggest that we create peace through prayer and love.

Governments use force trying to achieve peace. And they rarely succeed. The churches, the mosques, the synagogues, and most religions know this reality quite well. They have always preached that peace can be achieved only through love. The time perhaps has come to transform preaching into teaching and enacting.

Perhaps the most important tool to be given to each member of the team is the ability to pray together with people of a different faith -- and soon after the ability to teach the blessings of such a gift to others. Each team should certainly be trained to speak the language(s) of the area they are supposed to affect. But specific tools such as leadership skills and negotiating techniques such as "getting to yes" should also be part of the curriculum. Hopefully, armies retreat and weapons are retrieved by ad hoc teams of the United Nations, perhaps; and broad political agreements are reached (why not along the lines of rotating governments as per the island of St. Martin's model?). Above all, members of the team should be familiar with the history and the culture of the place.

Eventually, the formation of these teams can take place in any part of the world, but the first efforts might need to take place at a location far away from the horrible trouble spots of the world. The teams themselves, preferably extracted from the populations that are in trouble, would experience peace, perhaps for the first time, even though only for a short while. Ideally, they might receive a greater infusion of ardor and commitment if the training were to take place at any of the world's great centers of spirituality.

It will depend on the number of teams available for final deployment and the specific mission to be carried out, but the basic strategy should be to start from the outermost ring of the area of trouble and proceed toward the center. The ideal is to build "circles of love" around the trouble spots of the world.

The various religions might want to start the effort on their own. But, if the formation of such teams should involve large number of trainees, financial support from various Departments of Peace might be a necessity. To a very minimum, overall support from governments might be requested from the start for a variety of purposes: for instance, to obtain current intelligence data, and at least detailed information about the geography, demographics, and economics of the area. But since the "circles of love" should be conceived as an army of love, advice as to strategic deployment of the teams should also be obtained from experts in the military of the various nations that might want to participate in the effort.

Undoubtedly, there would be risk to life and limb involved in the deployment of such teams. The rationale for accepting such risk is simply stated. If the various Departments of Peace and the various religions of the world do not take the initiative to reach peace, the military sooner or later will intervene. Through the military, risk to life and limb is increased many times over.

The third suggestion is for the Department of Peace to create SWAT teams for justice. Specifically, SWAT teams for economic justice. The visitor is thus invited to go back at the beginning of this site, where useful suggestions for the implementation of economic justice can be found.