I think it is important to elaborate a little on my creed. For a little while I'm going to go through the different points of the creed and explain myself a little bit.
1. Pacifism is not the fear of the fight, it is the belief that violence, anger, war, and fights only lead to more violence, anger, war, and fights.
Many people seem to think that you are weak when you choose pacifism. They believe that bravery is measured in a persons willingness to use force to solve a problem. It is an interesting belief when you hear the campaign to stop bullying in schools. We sit our children down and teach them how violence, anger, and fighting are not a good means to gain what we want. We tell them that they cannot use force to get their way, we teach them conflict resolution to avoid violence, help them to work through their anger and address the problem before it becomes too much for them to handle. So what message do we send them when we speak of the need to use war to spread democracy and protect freedom? What do they think when we use violent imagery to make a point in politics? How should they feel when we insult a president for seeking forgiveness for the deaths of innocents in war?
These mixed messages confuse me personally. It seems that we disapprove of violence in young children, but as soon as they turn eighteen we honor it when it is done for country. I suppose that the difference lies in who the violence is directed toward and where it takes place. If we use violence, fighting, and war to "defend freedom" (most recently to exact revenge for an attack on us) then it is ok. In other words, violence is wrong except in war or against the bad guy. This is where the trouble starts. Who is the "bad guy"? In our case it is whoever we are fighting, but in their case it is us. When we descend to force we encourage the use of force in return because we become the "bad guy".
When World War II ended we started almost immediately into the Cold War. It became drastically important that we stop the spread of communism at all costs. This led to some questionable choices in international policy. We fed money into groups that we saw as anti-communism/russian with little thought to the consequences. Russia took over countries in the Middle East so the United States funded, armed, and trained Afghan mujahideen to overthrow the occupiers*. In 1988 this group established itself as al-Qaeda+. They went on to start a network of global terrorism and most notably (to the U.S.) orchestrated the attack against the Twin Towers on September 11th. This attack sparked the wars in Afghanistan and, surprisingly, Iraq. To figure out Iraq you have to either believe the statement of the government that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction or you need to step back a little further. During the Cold War Saddam Hussein rose to prominence in the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party and chose to make ties with the Soviet Union. In 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait in the Gulf prompting the US to attack. When Saddam was not deposed in the Gulf War his further human rights violations led to the second US invasion of Iraq^.
Once again a lot of history, but necessary to demonstrate my point without allowing much space for people to write me off for "inventing" the past. When we chose to fight we opened ourselves up for more fighting in return. We chose to encourage violence in the Middle East and it led to violence throughout the world. When this violence hit us we reacted with more violence, which led to increased violence and terrorism against us and the Western world, which led the Western world to more violence, and there seems to be no end to this in sight. If we had chosen to step back and say, "This hurt us and we are not ok with it, but we choose to not respond in kind. We are stronger then our need for revenge, but we ask the world to help us find justice." By justice I don't necessarily mean the deaths of those involved, but an effort to bring these people before the world to answer for their crimes in international court. This stance won't make me popular, but I think it is right. As I've said, I want peace and I don't see it coming at the end of a knife. I only see peace through a joint worldwide effort to bravely stop fighting.
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*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
+http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#History
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq#Republic_of_Iraq
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