World War 4?

As the bodies in Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, Afghanistan and Iraq pile up it’s hard not to see America’s own responsibility for the increase in killings.

By waging ‘war’ against mass murderers like Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein we opened the door for other nation states with powerful militaries to use and abuse their power as they see fit. Russia’s war against the Chechens and Israel’s war against Hamas and Hezbollah are justified as ‘self defense’. Each state accepts with little afterthought the inevitable loss of innocent lives that come with waging war. To those on the receiving end, war is terrorism.

Then, those waging so called ‘terrorist’ actions are given warrior status by the waging of war against them. This only compliments and emboldens them. Fact is, they are mass murdering thugs committing lethal crimes. Hate inspired crimes. But, crimes no more hate inspiring that the collateral damage our weapons are causing in Iraq, Lebanon and/or Gaza. War is a crime. A crime against humanity.

American's play an even greater role when US foreign aid dollars pay a significant portion of the bills the Israeli war machine rings up in crushing both guilty and innocent lives whenever and wherever they are used.

To the innocent people in both Gaza and Lebanon it is the Israeli bombers that are the terrorists. Just as a suicide bomber commits mass murder a F-16 accomplishes the same from a greater distance. Even more so when a massive war machine is used to respond to the capture of only three Israeli soldiers. War should never be the legal means of rescuing hostages. And, the three captured Israeli soldiers are hostages, as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claims.

What happens when hostages are taken within our country? Is our military immediately unleashed? When the Iranian students took 50 Americans hostage for over 440 days several decades ago, the US didn’t go in the next day with guns blazing to punish the Iranian people for the criminal acts of a few. At that time our policy makers were intelligent enough to know that such an attack would only lead to a far larger conflict. We got our hostages back…and the only loss of lives were American’s brave enough to risk their lives in a rescue attempt that would not have mass murdered others.

If the Israeli leaders really cared about its soldiers, it would jump at a prisoner exchange.

The Jewish people deserved a homeland after World War II. But, the Palestinians didn’t deserve to lose theirs. And, since 1948, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian and other Arab women, men and children have been murdered and maimed by Israeli bullets, bombs and missiles. And, Americans have spent hundreds of billions to provide these. Far fewer Jews have been killed by Palestinian bombers. This is an enormous injustice that must be handled through lawyers and a court rather than weapons on a battle field or village.

Our great nation is based on justice and the rule of law. We should expect no less for all others we share this tiny planet with.

Everyone has a right to defend themselves. Everyone has an inalienable right to fight for land and freedom. No one should have the right to wage war. Doing such is a crime against humanity. A hate crime of the worst order. Mass collective punishment of civilians was the normal operating procedure of the Nazis. They were tried for their crimes. Others should be tried today.

Peace in the Middle East is possible, but not through war. Law is the only sane path to lasting peace. War will only lead to Armageddon (think genetically targeted biological weapons).

We could wait for the second coming. Chances are, our actions have already blown that possibility. He’d probably just end up as collateral damage anyway.