Please Save The War Child
The bleeding face and body of a child shivering with shell shock and terror should not cause controversy. The look of utter, helpless despair in a child searching for recently killed parents should not cause controversy.
And no controversy should attend the unimaginable tragedy of a lifeless little body of a child, done to death by bullet, bomb or sword.
Nor should it cause controversy to behold the faces of parents shaking with sorrow and anxiety about the fate of their child killed, injured, burned, held hostage.
And yet, in conflict after modern conflict, fought with weapons designed to kill indiscriminately, there are popular voices that claim that one particular heinous crime of child murder is less heinous than the other. Even worse, that one side’s murder and maiming of children may be justified (tragic though the suffering and loss of life is). The latter is a notch down on the descending scale of depravity. But there is alas another even more depraved position and it is this - that one side “deserved” the terror inflicted upon their children.
Where is our common humanity?
I suggest that there be a litmus test of whether we (often unknown even to ourselves) are departing the shores of common decency and common humanity and embarking upon a dangerous voyage that takes us further and further into the deep, dark morass of moral ambiguity and evil.
The litmus test is simply this: does the face and fate of an innocent injured or dead child - regardless of race, religion or origin - fill us with a sense of deep sorrow and outrage? Or do we dive into the moral compromise of asking for “context?” Can there be a context to this terrible kind of depravity?
There is a much more eloquent and inspired way of putting humanity to the litmus test. In the words of St. Paul, do we “weep with those who weep” about children in a war zone - regardless of race, origin or religion?
Elsewhere, I wrote about the essential rights of the child. And I identified in that essay, that the right of a child to life is fundamental to every other right. That essay was addressed to both adults and children. This one is addressed to ourselves as adults.
The jungle instincts of the human being are never far from us. The law of the jungle and the world “red in tooth and claw” are ever at our door. It is remarkably easy, but for the Grace of God, to slip from decency to depravity, from a soul that is moved to tears by the suffering child, to one that shrugs its shoulder or asks for “context” - and “passes by the other side.”
When taking the side of the child, we need not take other sides -the latter too can wait. And the child may even be able to bring peace to both sides. For when each side looks into the face of the other’s child and realizes that the “other” child may have been his own, perhaps a peace, however imperfect but better than war, can be reached.
In the cold glare of history, it becomes obvious that in every case, it is old men who send young men to war. A very few older men have agendas that are not obvious at the time, but become clearer and clearer as the events of war unfold and can be dispassionately studied. Under the cloak of revenge, heroism, patriotism and loyalty, these older men have sent millions of young men to their deaths - or to a life of disability and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The young men and women in the various armies and navies and air-forces of the world do not on the whole, wish to kill and maim children. My appeal is addressed to them as well.
We must take urgent action to save the war child, wherever he or she lives. The right to wage war or “resistance” cannot precede and walk over the fundamental right of the child to life. No peace or ceasefire is perfect and no two sides are likely to be completely satisfied by the terms of peace. But ceasing fire when children are in the way is common sense.
If a child is in the pathway of a speeding train, adults would scoop the child to safety first - without any reference to context, race, religion or creed. There are hundreds of thousands of children in war zones now, in dire danger of being maimed, killed, orphaned or starved. They must be saved first - all other questions can wait.
War is inherently dehumanizing. I hate war and fear war. Children are among the most helpless, and I feel terrible about any innocent person who dies in war--children and adults. In order to do what we can for wars to hopefully become a thing of the past, there is another litmus test that we have to pass: are we playing into the hands and stepping into the traps of those who want war? Unfortunately, when it comes to Israel and Hamas, this article's generality (stating facts that any person with a conscience can agree on) and its lack of specific discussion of what leads to children being killed and how this can be prevented plays into the hands of what the Hamas is expecting from the West. Israel did not create the facts of October 7--the murder, rape, torture and kidnapping of civilians that was unprecedented in the history of Israel. These facts were created by Hamas, and if they did not happen there would not be bombs falling on Gaza right now. Unfortunately, Hamas is able to count on another empirical reality: they know that they can do whatever they want and within a very short period of time the world will start to criticize Israel or talk in general about how terrible war is (which indeed it is terrible). It is important to talk about the innocent victims of war and the inherently dehumanizing nature of war, but this cannot stand separately from an analysis that points out who wants and causes their victimization, so that hopefully those who love war can be weakened. Therefore, in my opinion, in the context of Israel and Hamas, the best thing that people who hate war can do is to condemn the Hamas without unintentionally giving them the gifts that they are counting on. The Hamas want as many Palestinian children as possible to die. Statements about the fact that the death of children is wrong without an analysis of the of the nature of the Hamas play into the hands of the Hamas, who are relying on the world to develop false moral equivalents. I am in a very difficult emotional position: I was educated to hate and fear war ever since I can remember myself. However, I am not willing to step into the trap of the Hamas by forgetting who wants as many Israeli and Palestinian children to die--the Hamas.
We don't want War. It is the psychopath globalists who are fomenting this. Their grand puba Albert Pike told them they needed a world war lll. These are satanists and they need to disappear permanently, and then there wouldn't be all this death and trauma.