It is easy to preach peace in time of peace and war in time
of war. What is harder is to decide once and for all to repudiate war, and to
stick to it, no matter what. Is there ever a 'just war'? I honestly don't know.
But I know darn well, that even if the war starts off as fulfilling the Just
War criteria, it doesn't stay that way for long.
Listen to the words of Martin Bell, writing on the Movement for the Abolition of War website: "We have reached a state of affairs
where for our own survival, and that of our planet, we cannot afford a future
like our past. We face new forces, of
global warming and nuclear proliferation, which threaten our future as never
before. I suggest there is a further danger, perhaps less obvious and
unperceived, but just as far-reaching in its implications: this is that, for
those who govern us, war has become not a last, desperate resort when all else
has failed, but a policy option to be plucked off the shelf like any other. We
have seen this most recently and appallingly in the war in Iraq
It is now generally accepted that World War One was a
senseless waste of human life. But most folk would argue that World War Two was
justified, on the grounds that Hitler had to be stopped. However, like most
wars, this too soon got out of hand, and both sides bombed civilians indiscriminately,
culminating in the unprecedented horrors of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
And today, this country, the United
Kingdom , is one of the major players in selling armaments
to the world, being the second biggest exporter after the United States India and Pakistan
makes South Asia one of the most volatile regions of the world, yet the UK Israel
Which makes it ever more important that the witness for peace should be heard.
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