Some activists are working to try to prevent that from happening again. According to Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches and co-chair of United for Peace, his group now has three priorities. The first is ministering to soldiers and their families, the second is working on humanitarian aid for Iraqi victims, and the third is a huge political drive to let legislators know that the public doesn't support preemptive war.

"This is going to mean a massive educational effort on the part of our constituents, to help them understand that a new imperialism is not something people of faith support," he says.

According to Edgar, part of that means teaching people throughout America that this new imperialism is rooted in a powerful ideology, not solely a response to Sept. 11. He, and others on the left, believe that much of the current administration's foreign policy was laid out in a 1997 manifesto issued by Project for a New American Century, a think tank run by neoconservative luminary William Kristol.

"The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire," the manifesto says. "The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership ... [W]e need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values ... [W]e need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles." Its signatories included Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Council senior director Elliott Abrams, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and presidential brother Jeb Bush.

On Sept. 20, 2001, the Project issued a letter calling for "appropriate measures of retaliation" against Iran and Syria if they refuse to cut their ties to Hezbollah. It was signed by Richard Perle and much of the neoconservative intellectual elite. In the New York Times last Sunday, an administration official was quoted saying, "This is just the beginning. I would not rule out the same sequence of events for Iran and North Korea as for Iraq."

Such talk leads Edgar to say that the antiwar movement "absolutely" needs to do some preemption of its own. "I'm co-chair of the Win Without War Coalition and I tongue-in-cheek suggested the other day that we added an 's' to the end of our name," he says. "What's so bad about this preemptive policy is that we've now invaded Iraq, and it would be easy for the conservatives in the administration to urge now that you have all those troops in, let's invade Iran. If you take Iraq and then take Iran, North Korea's going to be concerned, Syria's going to be concerned, and we look very much like the British did a century or two ago."

Edgar says churches have a role to play in educating parishioners about the moral implications of a policy that seeks to rule by unilateral force. "In the National Council of Churches we have 140,000 congregations and every Sunday they gather, so we have at least an audience to begin to communicate with," he says. "There will have to be a long-term effort to reeducate ourselves to the value of diplomacy and the value of conflict resolution, and helping Christians to understand that Jesus was a man of peace, not of war. It's a big job, but it's one that we will tackle and it's what gives us motivation to work for peace."

At the same time, says Edgar, a Democrat who served as a congressman from Pennsylvania from 1975 to 1987, there needs to be an effort by antiwar progressives to take back the government. "I'm interested in getting young men and women of both parties to run for the House and Senate," he says. "Essentially, since 9/11 we have only had one political party. The Paul Wellstone vision is completely absent from either political party. I want to see young men and women step forward and rebalance our political structure."

MoveOn.org, a prominent antiwar group that mobilizes progressives on the Web, is doing something similar. The group has started an online campaign to raise money for humanitarian aid to Iraq -- according to Joan Blades, one of MoveOn's co-founders, $500,000 was raised last weekend -- and is lobbying Congress while looking ahead to the 2004 election.

"I think looking at the big picture is what's vitally important," Blades says. "That means getting involved in the long run to make sure our government does not have a policy of preemptive wars. We want the rule of law and United Nations participation."

And the group wants to make sure that's a major issue in the next election. "That's the beauty of the American system," she says. "We are supposed to be electing people that govern in a way that we do support. If we don't get involved, we're betraying ourselves and betraying our country."

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