Sunday, August 14, 2005
Blessed be the peacemakers
The day we stop insulating ourselves from the horrors of war could be the day they cease to exist. First we would have to acknowledge that the causes of wars, nakedly void of political spin and self righteous rhetoric, are almost always the products of greed, poverty and hatred of those who differ from ourselves and are fanned by religous zealots who condone murder in the name of one God or another. This has been a long playing theme that has made a mockery of the Biblical, "Blessed be the peacemakers", because nobody listens to the peacemakers when the blood is up and the bombs are 'bursting in air'. It will be only if we wake up and hear the screaming of the innocent who fall prey to the malignant fools who put then in harms way that
we might step back from the brink and 'study war no more'.
That of course is not likely to happen in our time and for me to express such a hope is painfully naive at best. I really wonder, though, if there is an intellegent alternative left to us in the end. There are those among us who thrive on conflict and violent solutions and who consider those that do not to be weak and cowardly. Well, I guess time will be the ultimate judge. Once the smoke of battle disipates and we all go back to our normal lives, we have to carry the burden of remembering those who were'nt so lucky.
George Morin
Auburn
we might step back from the brink and 'study war no more'.
That of course is not likely to happen in our time and for me to express such a hope is painfully naive at best. I really wonder, though, if there is an intellegent alternative left to us in the end. There are those among us who thrive on conflict and violent solutions and who consider those that do not to be weak and cowardly. Well, I guess time will be the ultimate judge. Once the smoke of battle disipates and we all go back to our normal lives, we have to carry the burden of remembering those who were'nt so lucky.
George Morin
Auburn
