In this season when we are singing “Peace on earth, good will toward men,” and celebrating the birth of the man some call the Prince of Peace, isn’t it amazing that we can at the same time undertake a protracted violent response to an injustice, however horrible, that was inflicted on us? Are our brains really split into two separate pieces so that we can believe in opposites at the same time?

Given our insistence that other nations abide by the “rule of law” isn’t it amazing that we can at the same time sidestep justice in pursuit of revenge? That we can thwart the development of an international criminal court and a truly effective United Nations?

Given that we tell our children that hitting back is not the way to solve problems, and that we have been telling the fighting factions in Ireland and the Middle East for years that retaliation only breeds more retaliation, isn’t it amazing that at the highest level, we as a nation can ignore our own advice and show ourselves to be hypocrites without even blushing?

War is not the way to peace or justice. Peace with justice is the way to peace. We could do it that way if we had the will, the conscience, as a nation. We have a president who tells us that Jesus is his personal guide. Can anyone really believe that Jesus would advise him to bomb Afghanistan and perhaps next Iraq, Sudan and wherever else we feel spiteful? I can’t.

Peter Rees

Trenton