Assignment 9 - Aislinn Langley

It's easy to be idealistic and say that all war is horrible and unnecessary and ends more lives than it saves. It's easy to rant about how American new media has desensitized us to violence and war and that we don't understand the cruelties of war. It's easy to criticize governments and individuals when we aren't the ones calling the shots and making the tough decisions. But flat-out opposing all war and conflict is hardly the way to go about anything.

It's true that some wars have gone badly for all parties involved, and that some of the most damaging wars have arisen from matters which now hardly seem worthy of war (I'm looking at you, World War One). But in many other cases, war has been the only option when diplomacy has failed. When a people's rights have been abridged to the point of intolerance, there seem to exist only two methods of resolving the problem: talking it out and fighting it out. And in so many cases, we've seen that talking it out doesn't always work.

Formally requesting that Hitler should maybe stop annexing neighboring countries proved ineffectual, petitioning the British Government for representation didn't do much for Colonial America. There comes a point when war is the only solution.

It's easy to condemn war and those who make it. It's easy to be unaffected and judge those who are. What's difficult is living in a situation in which tremendous and sustained violence is the only hope for eventual peace. People forget that sometimes.