More violence won’t rid the world of all its evil

I am horrified, although not surprised, at the response of our government’s supposed leaders to “wage war” on an unknown or as yet unproven enemy. I wonder what sort of person it takes to make bold statements such as, “we will vanquish evil.” As someone raised with the teachings of Christ, I wonder at the vengeful Christians of our nation who would kill in revenge and call it justice. What exactly were the teachings of Christ? Forgiveness and love for sinners, wasn’t it?

And I wonder at the outrage of a nation who has possibly unleashed more evil on the globe in the last 60 years than any other nation save Hitler’s: a death toll of 192,000 innocent civilians in the nuclear bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; over 2 million, including Americans, killed or maimed by bombings and burned by napalm in Vietnam; thousands deformed and disabled by herbicide defoliants sprayed there, because we thought the world should be rid of Communism. How is this different than those who would rid the world of our way of life?

In Pearl Harbor, we lost over 2,000 Americans and Japan paid with near annihilation of two of their cities. In New York and Washington, we lost 5,000. What will the Afghans, Pakistanis, and all others drawn into the conflict, pay? Evil has never been nor ever will be rid of by violence. We should stop and ponder before we act in senseless emotion.

Camano Island