Though the horrors of war and lethal violence occur much less now in the world than 70 years ago,*
there are still so many innocent victims
and far too many misguided victors, and not a few sociopaths.
How ought a human being--just one of your average "I"s--respond to all the urgent calls for war?
How should I respond?
Take a brief trip down into memory hell...
What is the best way to respond to injustice, inequality, aggressive attack, and terrorism?
1. Like many Jewish people in the Holocaust?
2. Like the Deists in the American Revolutionary War?
3. Like the Girondins and Jacobins during the French Revolution?
4. Like Howard Gilmore, the Medal of Honor submarine captain fighting the Japanese?
5. Like Desmond Doss, the Medal of Honor medic?
6. Like the Allies using carpet bombing on German cities ending with the firebombing of Dresden?
7. Like American sniper Chris Kyle in the American first strike war in Iraq?
8. Like General Sherman in his "March to the Sea" in the American Civil War?
9. Like Gandhi in his nonviolent struggle against colonialism?
10.Like Muslims such as HAMAS and Islamic Jihad in their religious fight for land?
from Liberty Magazine
11.Like the Israeli military bombing of Gaza after Palestinians murdered 3 Israeli teens and shot rockets into Israel?
12.Like the Greeks in the Trojan War?
13.Like Krishna who ordered Arjuna in 3,000 B.C. India to kill his own relatives in war because that is a soldier's duty?
14.Like 19th century Europeans who escaped being drafted into their countries' wars by immigrating to the United States?
15.Like the Crusaders when they conquered Jerusalem in 1099?
16.Like Viet Cong soldiers against other Vietnamese, the French colonists, and American soldiers?
17.Like General Santa Ana in fighting invading Americans in the Mexican War? And the leaders of the Mexican Revolution against each other in the early 20th century?
18.Like Emperor Qin when he conquered Zhao in China about 220 B.C.?
19.Like John Woolman, the famous abolitionist and Friend to the Indians in the 1700's?
20.Like the fictional character in the movie Collateral Damage who emphasizes only the killer ought to be killed, not any innocent bystanders?
21.Like American leaders in the killing of about 450,000 civilians in the bombing of Japanese cities?
22. Like Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Muslim community activist and nonviolent warrior in the 1920's who opposed the British?
23.Like Napoleon against the European countries that opposed the government of Revolutionary France?
24.Like Joshua and the armies of Israel who killed everyone for Yahweh--"both men and women, young and old" living in the cities they attacked? And David and his band who robbed villages and then massacred everyone so that there would be no one to report their attacks?
23.Like the Prophet Muhammad who beheaded 600 to 900 Jewish men and older teens and then had their women and children sold into slavery? And like Muhammad when he had a Jewish poet executed because she wrote a poem against him?
24.Like the Confederate army which sometimes executed Union army troops after they surrendered?
ETC. (Come up with your own variations on how to deal with war.)
*The Fallen of World War 11: https://vimeo.com/128373915 and http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
