What we are told "war" is :
A fight of honour, in which opponents with matching abilities fight each other to the death.
What war actually is:
A warplane firing 1000-kilo bomb onto a building housing sleeping grandparents, mothers and children.
A sniper, comfortably hidden far away and above, shooting and killing a person who was participating in a peaceful non-violent protest out on the street, in the open, with absolutely nothing to defend himself/herself.
There is absolutely no honour in this.. no semblance of "equality" between the killer and the killed.
War is evil. And the situation of the day is.. that whoever engages in this, even for the sake of keeping themselves alive, only end up justifying this evil thing more and more.
It's a very, very difficult position to take but I see great wisdom in Gandhi's thoughts on this : From a pure strategic perspective, when faced with the guarantee of being annihilated, where it's been made certain that there is no chance of fight or flight, then the wiser option seems to be to refuse to retaliate, and to take Death without putting up any fight or flight. Why? Because all the entities giving support and legitimacy to the enemy, still are not all purely evil. They too have been fooled that this horrendous thing is being done to defend them. Any retaliation will play right into this trick, will enforce it. That illusion needs to be shattered.
It's not about being goody-goody. It's strategy. And surely a far better one than all the others being tried.
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