We've come to see so called "conventional" warfare as being morally acceptable whereas the use of nuclear or chemical weapons is not. For its victims, is there any real difference?
I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Daily News-Record this week:
I often disagree with columnist Rich Lowry, but his 11/1/22 piece on the editorial page of the Daily News-Record on diplomacy in Ukraine deserves our attention. Something must be done to end the holocaust in Ukraine other than adding ever more fuel to that awful fire. Even as we condemn Putin's invasion and support Ukraine's right to sovereignty, when will Christians, Jews, Muslims, pro-lifers, environmentalists and people of compassion and goodwill everywhere simply condemn war itself as an unthinkable evil?
Whenever we use evil means to resist evildoers we perpetuate ever more evil, whether it’s Maccabees fighting against Greek invaders, medieval Crusaders attacking Muslims occupying Jerusalem, or even the Allies opposing Hitler in WWII.
In the case of the latter, citizens of one of the most Christianized nations in Europe, Germany, failed to resist the Fascism, racism and extreme nationalism of the Nazi regime with every non-violent means possible, thus becoming complicit in the annihilation of some six million Jews and other targets of their hatred. Then in the war that followed some 50 million lives were lost.
When we engage in the same massive destruction as Hitler and other evildoers we become ever more like them. Their violent and barbaric tactics actually win, and the world is in ever increasing danger of destroying itself.
Professional policing within a nation's borders may sometimes involve the legitimate use of force, but engaging in the wholesale destruction of God's children and God’s earth, whether with nuclear, chemical or "conventional" weapons, must be ruled out as an intolerable evil.
By everyone.
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