THE BALI BOMBING
Remember the Bali bombing when terror struck again on the world stage. The scurge of evil again cast its shadow over decent people going about life in a normal manner.
After the initial shock and ensuing sense of loss, the mourning and grief began to set in, as we continued to see the graphic images of people experiencing the living hell of loved ones brutally taken from them.
What should be our response to such atrocities.
Should we join the growing rage and retaliate with the US, by attacking those nations purported to be harbouring the terrorists.
Would our justified retaliation really solve the deeper problem of two divergent cultures now so distrusting of each other that further hostilities simply widen the breach created between the east and west.
Did the embargos placed on Iraq for many years, really work, or did they simply contribute to over a half a million children dying of starvation and disease.
Did the bombing raids really work, or did more innocent people become victims of uncontrolled rage, and the cry of the innocents demand further retaliation.
Perhaps it would have been more effective for the west to have shipped in huge food and medical supplies to a nation decimated by their own despotic dictator, and in so doing build bridges of tolerance and peace between those decent normal everyday people in both the east and west who equally despise the tyranny of war.
Make no mistake, a continuing war between the east and the west will never stop the evil of terrorism, nor will it heal the widening breach between east and west.
The west may well win the next battle but it will never win the war against evil by using force, no matter how justified it seems.
The only true way to overcome your enemies is to love them.
Both here at home in Australia and on the world stage, loving your enemies is still the most effective way to overcome evil in any form.
Australia may be a long way from the middle east, and we may feel somewhat isolated from the ongoing events of the region, but the next insane act of terrorism will again dump this whole dilemma right back into our laps, and we will again need to decide how we will respond. Why not decide to give peace a chance.
Steve Penny
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