Note: The absence of war is not peace.

[Skidmore]

I've been reading posts today and not responding because I felt I needed to ponder a bit on the issues with Syria. I still haven't come to a conclusion as to what the best course to take is. There are too many parties and conflicting agendas. Killing begets killing but sometimes not taking a stand allows it to continue unabated and to destroy a nation. A people has to be willing to put their nation together so that it functions and intervention from external entities does not guarantee that will happen.

What bothers me is that in all the anti-war discussions over the past decade or more, there is no discussion of how to effect peace beyond laying down weapons. How does one go about healing the rifts within all of these nations, including our own? Domestically we are not stellar examples of how to peacefully co-exist. We also have people carrying guns into public assemblies conveying an implicit threat in the guise of asserting rights. Those assemblies are "peaceful" in that thus far weapons have not been discharged yet. The underlying strife is still there.

I don't know if I am articulating this very well, but I do think that while people are talking about no war, there needs to be simultaneous requests for all nations to stand down. Lay down and destroy weapons. We don't need more weapons and have enough in this world to last for generations if not one more weapon was produced. How do we get on the same page with promoting peace and not the absence of war? I don't think that this is too fine of a distinction to draw.

[peace13]

1. Our continual state of war has depleted any value war ever had.

Death or more death, which do we choose? What is peace? A place where there is a roof, food and safety. What percentage of people here on earth actually experience peace? Our own citizens are one disease away form losing it all. There is no peace here.

To the war mongers it is only a sales transaction. They will need other avenues to take more than they are due before they even think about getting out of the war game.

Our own people are desensitized to war now. They don't even realize that the killing is in our name with our money and the blood is on our hands. They think Afghanistan, Iraq...Syria, what is another few bombs? Innocents will die, well that sucks to be them. Innocents have died, yes, but nothing like what will come if.... strike that, when the bombs start dropping.