LETTER: War should be a last resort

Dear Editor,

It’s easy to understand the desire to bring to justice the perpetrators of the acts of murder and destruction we’ve recently witnessed in our nation. However, hopefully, we will all think long and hard about the course of action we should take.

Anyone who thinks they’ve heard Gandhi’s quote “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” too often during the past week probably has not heard it frequently enough. While aggressive efforts need to be made to bring to justice those responsible for the horrendous acts of violence in New York City and Washington, D.C., too often the word “justice” can become a code word for revenge.

Military actions which kill more innocent people would not be justice, just more gasoline on the fires of hatred and violence that have the potential to consume large parts of our world and many, many more innocent lives. If we give in to the desire for revenge, the desire to “speak the terrorists’ language” of “blood, death and carnage” (especially against the innocent citizens of another country) we will be degrading our own humanity.

Rather than preventing future and possibly more horrible incidents of death and destruction, we will be playing into the hands of those who wish to fan the flames of conflict, and watch the number of recruits to their cause multiply. We need not only to seek justice (for the truly guilty) but seek peace with even greater resolve. At times, there may be no alternative but try to win peace through war. But war must always be the course of last resort, and never be used to satisfy a desire to hurt and kill, no matter how angry we are, or how justified and righteous that desire may seem. An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

Mark Nafziger