Be warned – today could deteriorate into pure rant. Today there was this decision that New Zealand would send armed forces to Iraq. No matter which way you argue this we have “chosen a side”.
I remember the first Gulf War – and my husband and his friends utter fascination with the long range missile strikes. While they gloried in the technology, and the accuracy, all I (and many of my women friends) could think was – there are people there. Even if they were soldiers of an opposing army, they were still people. Another mother’s son (and now another mother’s daughter)
It feels like a many headed hydra, every time the West stages a “righteous” intervention the next round of war becomes more brutal. From the PLA to the Taliban and Al Quedia to ISIS – you’d think we’d begin to wonder if the nature of war (we could go right back to the Crusades!) isn’t so inherently flawed that we might need to figure out a better way of dealing with all this. Do I believe that ISIS is terrible and needs to be stopped – of course! Do I think more violence will control violence? No.
There is a saying that if we keep on doing what we have always done – we will keep on getting what we’ve always got. Almost 100 years ago two of my great, great uncles gave their lives in a war that was supposed to end all wars, a war that grew out of injustice and left a legacy of injustice that led to the rise of Nazi Germany, which in turn carved up the world in ways that created disempowerment and injustice.
It is Lent – in the Christian tradition, walking the road with a man who said “those who live by the sword, will die by the sword” and told a story of radical peace. Maybe it’s time we paid a bit more attention.
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