I watch with great sadness the endless cycle of violence throughout the world:
from open conflicts over territory and borders,
to simmering low-level conflicts waged against minorities and the marginalized,
to terrorist attacks meant to sow fear and terror against nations and communities,
to the daily struggle many people against injustice, hunger, and persecution.
I am appalled by the apparent lack of reason and morals among many world leaders.
How can the killing of the undesirables in a society ever be state policy?
That it is better for a few to suffer to save the rest of the nation?
How can supposedly civilized nations even entertain a strategy of preemptive strikes?
That it is better to do unto others before they do unto you?
We were never born with anger and hatred in our hearts.
We learned those responses later in life.
But even those learned responses of anger and hatred are
not reason enough for all the violence and killing.
It can never be a tooth for a tooth.
That is the road to our common perdition.