War

Recently, I have been reading about the Balkan wars. It is a topic I had very few information about. I was reading an article on CNN about Mladic and about demonstrators in Serbia treating him as a hero. Before I continue, I have to explain that a lot of my rants do not come from the news themselves, but from the comments that people make about the news. Well, this CNN user made a comment about Bosnians also killing a lot of people and US news agencies just showing a biased perspective of the news that make Serbs look bad. This what my reply: “We really don't know what happened and we should hear both sides of the story before we decide to take sides, however, ordering the killing of thousands of innocent civilians is genocide and there is no justification for it. There may have been unusual killing of Serbs in Bosnia, but ordering the execution of thousands of people does not make up or even it out. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” his response to my reply was something along the lines of “why should you know about this conflict, you only had 18 years to lean about it.” BURN!

It is true, I usually get mat about people not caring enough about what is going on in the world, but in my defense, I was 10 years old when this happened and I was busy dealing with my own national conflicts. The point is that there are so many wars and disputes out there that it is hard to keep up. Even if we do have a general knowledge of what is going on, how do you know it is not a biased version of it? The reality of war is that it doesn’t matter who is right of wrong, it is often civilians that pay the price. Lets take the example of Israel vs. Palestine. I think I have a pretty good understanding of what is going on, I mean, it has only been going on for over 50 years and the conflict pretty much remains the same. The problem is that I can see both points of view. On one hand, Palestinians lived there for hundreds of year, and then all of the sudden they are losing their land because some people believe that was the land that was promised to them over 2000 years ago. But then I understand the Jewish people wanting to have their own nation after the atrocities committed against them and let’s face it, the majority of the world stood still and did nothing while millions of Jewish people got murdered. I am saying the majority, because there were hundreds, even thousands of people who decided to take action and for resistance groups, however, I also believe a lot of these were to protect their own interests. Let’s face it, had it not been for Pearl Harbor, the US would have never gotten involved. But I am starting to go on a tangent (or a tangent of a tangent) the point is that The Jewish people created a nation, and developed the land and made it into the technologically advanced nation that it is today so they feel like they have earned the right to stay. The problem is that Palestinians are still mad, and they have the support from the Arab world who has been at war with the Jewish world for centuries. But at the end of the day, it is the politicians who refuse to compromise while it is mostly civilians that get caught in the cross-fire. I guess what I am not too eloquently trying to say is that there are very few things worth fighting for. Life, opportunity and freedom are definitely worth fighting for. As Dante and MLK once said, "the hottest place in hell is reserved for those who choose to remain neutral at a time of great moral conflict." However, land, oil, diamonds, religion…definitely not worth fighting for.

I'll leave you with this: The picture below is the face of war. Look at the picture and tell me. Is it really worth it? Does the fact that this girl is from a different religion make it less painful?

The idea of this ever happening makes it one more reason to not bring another child into this world.