A look to the future

[SloanSteady]

I've just finished reading several editorials in the Miami Herald. They are all very moving. They talk about how we, as Americans, will rise above this, our spirits will remain unbroken, and our justice will ultimately be had.

These things are all true.

I am also watching the news programs, on which experts are telling us all of the things that America is doing and must do to prevent such atrocities from ever happen again in our skies.

These things will all happen.

Finally, I have listened to our President tell us that we will root out the sources of terrorism and will not stop until this scourge is utterly eliminated.

This, sadly, will never occur.

Terrorism has long been the chosen method of warfare among those people who have, or feel that they have, no other recourse. In Europe and the Middle East, bombings of civilian locations are more common than anyone wants to accept. These people cannot fight us head-on. We would destroy them. But, they feel that they must fight, somehow.

This is not a defense of their actions. It is morally abhorrent, as any war is. Unfortunately, killing and destroying are the "best" solution our species has come up with for settling our differences. We, as Americans and Europeans and other "civilized" societies, strive to limit our carnage to military targets and personnel, but it still boils down to killing and destroying people and things. And shattering lives and worlds. It is still our ultimate solution - and one which as I write, our government prepares to put into effect against "them."

So long as this is true - that killing is our grand answer - I think we should all accept that terrorist activities will continue. We will remove some of the convenience, comfort and freedom in our lives at the airport and in the air - and we must, obviously, do so - but those who aspire to kill us will find another way. They will devise some other sinister method of delivering harm onto those who do not deserve it.

This is the world we live in. If it upsets you, as it should, and if it frightens you, as it must, then I urge you not to think thoughts of revenge by killing. Think instead of a better way to solve the differences that we, as complex and contradictory peoples, will always have. Remember this as you watch the crying families searching for their loved ones - every killing we enact as our revenge, as our justice, breeds another crying family member somewhere else in the world whose heart cries out to make someone pay.

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[ranaman]

Just a little reading to make you think. The war invloved in this story might not be considered a just one but something to think about. http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/warprayer.html

[icemark]

ranaman:

Great story I had forgotten about that I had read that years ago... too bad so many here have not seen/heard/experienced that side of war before.

My (and I am sure yours as well) only hope is that it will help open some of the eyes that are blinded with rage and revenge.

[mrok12]

It is sad, Iagree with the originator of this thread. I am a registered nurse by profession and see death on a constant basis. I can tell all of you that it is something I have never gotten used to. Tuesdays attack was like a death to our nation. We can no longer have the gran illusion of being safe at home in america. We are just now getting a taste of what other nation live with all the time. Yet we are arrogant and beleive that because this is america we not ought to subjected t the same pain as the rest of our bretheren in the world. My heart aches for all of you who lost loved ones in new york and washington, and to all of you who have lost loved ones to terrorism and wars in places I know little about. May GOD, what ever you interpretation may be, bless us all and help us live together in understandeing and peace.

MROK12