Beth's Ponderings
What side are you
on? Are you sure? Do you even know?
There as been a
lot, and I mean a LOT of media coverage of late surrounding Omar Khadr, who,
let me remind you, is a Canadian citizen who, as a minor, ended up in a war
situation and survived. Truly, that is
his ONLY crime - he survived the war.
Now, no matter what
your personal feelings are about him and his situation, I would also like to
remind you that there was a war going on, and Omar was fighting for the wrong
side...or was he?
That is where
things get tricky, and we don’t like to admit that life isn’t as black and
white as we portray it, because that REALLY shakes up our sense of right and
wrong.
A war means there
are two (at least) sides fighting each other.
So who is the enemy? We say it
was the other side. But….
Not so fast. The Canadians, Americans, and British were
not fighting on home soil, so they were foreigners. We were interlopers in a conflict that was
already in progress. Plus, how many
local civilians did our armies end up killing, even by accident, because it was
a war situation?
Hmmmm, that almost
sounds like it could be a definition of an enemy, doesn’t it? Because it doesn’t matter what side the
soldiers are fighting for, or what justifications are used (fighting to impose
our values on others doesn’t mean our values are right, or are even wanted by
others), to a local civilian, the soldiers are the enemy if they endanger the
civilian’s life, the lives of family and neighbours, home, and livelihood.
In a war situation,
which is horrific beyond belief, there are too many casualties, and untold
destruction, caused by both sides. Soldiers
on all sides are merely doing their job, and fighting as they are trained to do. One side is no more completely innocent than
the other side is completely guilty.
So, either EVERY
single soldier, of every rank, on BOTH sides is punished because they are ALL
guilty of fighting, or...none are.
Because, at the end
of the day, there are no winners in a war.
Beth
Read the complete issue of The Chautauqua here: https://sites.google.com/site/thechautauqua22/home/August%204%2C%202017%20Chautauqua.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
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