Did you ever notice that sometimes when you get to thinking you have more questions than answers?
We fancy ourselves as being pretty good at waging and winning wars. There seems to be a focus on our successes, especially the World Wars. We tend to ignore the tragic quagmires at the end of Vietnam and Afghanistan. Korea? Is that resolved yet or are we still glaring at each other across the 38th Parallel?
I heard a recent discussion on what does Israel do with Gaza once the fighting there stops. Who is going to govern what – and how? Seems like logical questions. Still, nobody on the learned panel had an answer.
It isn’t that we are without knowledge and experience. At times we have learned. After World War I, the peace treaty that was adopted was driven by those whose goal was to punish Germany and the German people. We helped create an economic and social environment in which Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party could flourish, gain control and thrust the world again into war. An embarrassed people will adopt positions that otherwise make no sense.
Us? Well, we told the ostriches to scoot over and we stuck our heads into the sand. We were convinced that two oceans would protect us. Let Europe resolve European matters. Germany invades Poland.
Japan? Who cares. There is one difference in Russia invading Ukraine and the German invasion of Poland. The difference is our response. We enabled the Ukrainians to fight back. Until we didn’t.
What difference does it make if Russia takes over the Ukraine? Did it make a difference when Germany took over Poland? I suggest we had better figure out an answer to these questions real soon. I am concerned. The revolutionary firebrand, Thomas Paine, said, “I prefer peace. But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so that my children can live in peace.”
In February of 1945, Great Britian and the United States unleashed a campaign of bombing German cities that created unbelievable fire storms. Dressen was the first. In a 3-day period, 135,000 noncombatants, women, men and children, were killed. The city bombed out of existence.
Great Britian could have contended justification citing the bombing of London. But perhaps Gandhi had the best response to such a concept when he said, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”
At the end of World War II, we chose to rebuild our enemies. They chose to let us. Germany and Japan are now great allies. Allies in every sense. Not puppets, but allies.
People keep comparing our present circumstances to America in 1860. A few folks speak of another Civil War as if it is inevitable and even positive. Neither is true.
The Civil War. The Union. The Confederacy. Slavery. How could one develop a romantic attachment to the era?
American racism. All this, yet I truly believe peace is ours for the making.
Let us have peace. – Ulysses S. Grant
