I don’t believe in war.
Am I the only one?
I turn on the TV.
Earnest faced men and women debate the idea of war.
An eye for an eye.
A tooth for a tooth!
I’ll get you before you get me!
“We must make war to earn the peace.”
And all the while the innocents are dying.

Might makes right.
You are wrong, we are right.
We are defending our way of life.
I’d rather kill you in your country than you in mine.
You attacked me so I must attack you.
What do we do about it?
How do we stop people who hate us?
Do we ever think seriously about why they hate us?
Are we the policeman of the world?
Who gives us the right to be the “policeman”?
Who gives us the right to decide who is right and who is wrong?
And still the killing goes on.

If we kill enough of “them” will they stop trying to kill “us”?
Is their God protecting them as we believe our God is protecting us?
Is their God on their side as we believe our God is on our side?
How many Gods are there?

Maybe we should let the Gods battle it out
As people once believed so many years ago.
At least the children, the young mothers,
The stalwart young men wouldn’t be paying the price.
For every person killed, another vows revenge.

The war goes on.
I still don’t believe in war, and yet I am torn.
I don’t know the answer.

This was written during the Iraq war. It could have been today, in 2014. I still don’t have the answers.