Humans have waged war against each other since the beginning of time, but that does not change the fact that war is a crime against humanity — murder and destruction on a massive scale.
Ah, but what about the “good” wars? The Revolutionary War that secured independence from King George III and gave us the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights? The Civil War that ended slavery? World War II that slapped down the Third Reich?
Violence begets violence. A revolution replaces one regime with another, sometimes a less brutal one as in 1783, sometimes more brutal as in Russia in 1917. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. World War II ended Hitler but his mad concept of superior and inferior races lingers on. Even after a Civil War that freed the slaves, slavery exists in other forms, and the foolish belief that some people are lesser beings because of their skin color has never been fully wiped away.
What those wars did accomplish was to cut thousands of lives short, lives that could have cured cancer or inspired millions or finally found a way for us to live in peace.
Is it simply human nature to want to lash out and extinguish the lives of people who have wronged us in one way or another? Perhaps it is — rage is a real and terrible force. But returning rage with rage, an eye for an eye, does not repair the injury or bring back the dead. If anything, it only continues the cycle of violence. The only “good” that a war might do is if the actual goal is to “reduce the surplus population,” as Dickens put it. And even at that, war is a horribly inefficient tool, taking the strong with the weak, the best and brightest in equal measure with the worst and darkest.
The idea of civilization is to rein in the more beastly impulses of human nature. The rules are simple — don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit violence to get your way. War is often seen as the opposite of civilization, because it is exactly that — combatants are told their duty is to commit lethal acts against other human beings with whom they have no personal quarrel and could even be friends in a more civilized setting.
I keep coming back to the gentle man from Galilee who preached forgiveness and said the two most important laws are to love God and love your neighbor, and even love your enemy. People who deny he was nonviolent sometimes note that he overturned the tables in the temple — but he didn’t slaughter the people manning those tables.
If Jesus had armed his 12 apostles and used them to assemble an army to kill as many people as possible until the Roman Empire was defeated, well, I’m certain we might remember him as a historical figure but we wouldn’t worship him. Instead, he taught us to turn the other cheek, and human nature being what it is, the great saints are remembered as martyrs, like Steven who was stoned to death for preaching the gospel.
We don’t know the names of anyone who picked up a stone that day, not even the first coward to hurl a rock, and their lives are forgotten in the ashes of history. But Steven’s name and his words live on, and in that fact is the ultimate defeat of war and other violence: No matter how many people you slaughter for speaking the truth, the truth will still ring true, and all the killing will bear no fruit.
Returning evil with evil only perpetuates evil. The enemy you slay will never have a chance to get to know you and become your friend. If he’s trying to kill you, defend yourself. But participate in a manufactured scenario where the rules are kill or be killed? Madness!
War is the last resort of scoundrels who can’t make peace with their neighbors. Does it matter who started it? Evil is evil, and one of the sacred commandments is “Do not murder.” Even atheists outlaw murder. It’s time we found alternatives to mass murder for resolving our conflicts.
Do I have a grand strategy for ending war? No. All I have is an individual desire to live in peace with other humans, to treat them with respect and, yes, love, and to understand that other individual humans are as worthy of life as I think I am, and I should let them live their lives as they see fit as long as they respect other people’s right to be left alone in peace. Perhaps we can convince and transform one another one heart at a time.
A long time somebody asked the rhetorical question, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” My hope and prayer is, one day, enough hearts will be convinced and transformed for that to become real.
