Don't dishonor the American flag in a war with Iraq Everywhere I go, I see American flags. Attached to people's windows, sewn onto pockets, worn in a band around the arm. People call it the unification of America, the great coming together of a wounded people, a show of support and national feeling from every corner of our nation. Patriotism, they call it, and they proudly display their red, white and blue. Yet I wonder if they know what that flag represents. I read the polls and found that the majority of Americans want revenge, even at the cost of war with many countries. I watch the news and see our president preparing our troops to invade Iraq, all while standing in front of the Star Spangled Flag, the symbol of our nation. Don't you remember what America means? Everyone talks about war in terms of our best interests. "If we attack Iraq, we will provoke even more anger; we will create more enemies willing to die to harm us." “If we don't, we will look weak and others will target us, knowing they can do so without fear of retaliation.” I leave these questions to the experts. These are important considerations, no doubt. But these are not American considerations. America is not looking out for our best interests. It is about sacrificing practicality to principle, self-interest to the soul. Long ago, we decided that things like Freedom and Justice were real and worth preserving, even when it wasn't easy or pleasant. We have believed in these principles so much that we have established laws, so that we can never sacrifice freedom for security, or justice for vengeance. And so we protect the Klan's right to march, shout hateful slogans, and burn crosses in our streets. We ban racial profiling when, let's face it, more crimes are committed by African Americans than Caucasians. And, most painful of all, we protect the rights of criminals. We work hard to give them fair trials, grant them appeals, and dismiss case after case for lack of compelling evidence. We insist that it is better to let one hundred guilty people go free than to imprison a single innocent person. And we do it at the expense of our own safety, at the expense of more criminals on the streets. We accept the pain that their crimes cause us, because we would rather suffer those blows than have innocent blood on our hands.