The biggest news headline lately seems to be whether the United States is on the brink of starting a war with Syria. After evidence came forward that the Syrian government used deadly chemical weapons on more than 1,000 of its people (400 of which were children) on August 21st, tensions have been escalating day to day between our government and theirs. The sad part about this is the fact that once again the country I live in is trying to use its heavyweight abilities to promote democracy in other parts of the world. I am all for democracy, as I live in a country that is based upon that. But the sad reality is that I also know war is never the answer, especially when it comes to promoting any agenda, such as spreading democracy.
Sometimes I wonder if people don’t understand that war only creates more war. It also creates more anger, more hate, and more uprisings. Using even the threat of violence and war does nothing more than raise tensions all around. Doing that reminds me of the big bully in high school that uses their big body frame to constantly pick up on someone smaller then them. Except what often happens these days in bullying is that the little person eventually fights back and causes more pain and hardship, even to people that were never even involved in the bullying. They pick up guns and other weapons and go on a killing spree for anyone they perceive as bullies. This same principle holds true with wars. We bully another country with our military strengths and weapons stockpiles and at some point, that smaller country has citizens that rally together and rage their own terrorism back on us so that we suffer. We then retaliate back from these terrorism acts and so on and so forth. The result is that no one wins even if one country eventually seems to become a victor.
War causes deaths, destruction, and a lot of terrible emotions that are everything but love. I choose to stand more in line today with those that have lived in peace filled movements to create more love such as Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus, and Ghandi. They all practiced non-violence to promote their agendas.
While the United States is currently only doing verbal threats towards Syria right now to get them to give up their chemical weapons, what they don’t realize is the way they are going about this is all wrong. Regardless if Syria does the action that the United States is seeking, the fact still remains that we are doing a very large version of bullying onto a country where its citizens need to rally together on their own to move forward towards democracy and equality. Throughout our country’s history, there have been many movements to achieve more equality but that didn’t come with another country bullying us to get there. Martin Luther King Jr took many of our citizens and united them together to help achieve racial equality.
So many of our country’s previous actions have led to things such as 9/11 and other terrible terrorists acts. Haven’t we lost enough soldiers already from all these wars where we try to promote our own agenda? How long is it going to be before our country can wake up and realize that bullying is only leading us to more pain and bloodshed. Sometimes the best thing we can all do is just work on ourselves and create a uniformity of light and love that shines as a beacon for everyone out there who hasn’t reached that point yet.
I pray to God that our country doesn’t go to war with Syria. I pray as well for the end to our country’s bullying it’s agenda in other places in this world. Like so many continue to say, we have a lot of problems right here in our own borders that need to be addressed first. Aren’t they more important to find solutions for than trying to promote our agenda elsewhere, which often just leads our country to new wars.
The bottom line is that the United States is acting no different right now than that big bully from high school. As my country uses its weight to threaten Syria with war, it’s already going down a dark path that is only going to lead us and them to more pain and hardship. War is NEVER the answer, and once started, it only leads to great losses of lives and land that never have to be lost in the first place. The only solution for creating love, equality, and peace in this world is to create that from within. And when all of us can unite together and have those feelings present from within, it’s then that everyone will truly begin to realize that war is never, and never was, the answer for any agenda.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson