War, Peace and Terrorism

Last night we dreamt of safety and love.
Only to wake and find none of the above.
Morning light showed us bloodshed and wrath.
In a hometown, where some other time it was
someplace to laugh.
A son loses a limb, a daughter her innocence.
Their parents spared, sort to speak.
Since in death they are oblivious.
How long can this be, before the world finally sees?
Peace and unity is there for the taking,
Acceptance of all one's beauty, can be in the making.
Made of the same Mother Earth, separated only by tongues.
This is the one War, with our Peace to be won.

-Robin Greenhalgh, September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001 will be a date that forever conjures up horrific images of the World Trade Center being annihilated. As I watched, the towers collapsed sending people running in the streets screaming. They were closely followed by a dust-cloud which looked eerily similar to the pyroclastic cloud that an angered volcano spews forth.

It was during these moments that from my comfy armchair in Canada, made me feel terror and hysteria. Lost in the dust, hearing the screams, and the soot-filled gasps from the breathless cameraman. Right at this time it struck me. There are people in the world who experience this chaos daily.

The whole concept of "world peace" is almost as arbitrary as halting the practice of pre-marital sex. I am not so sure, no matter how much prayer is spoken that it will ever happen. If just for a moment we disregard the differences we all have like nationality and religion, it would show that we are essentially all the same. If as much energy and consternation was put into achieving world-peace as there is put into fighting and war, we would all be pleasantly surprised at how quickly we became amicable. Of course this is in a perfect world...

What is difficult for me is that people say they fight for their beliefs. I am no expert on world religions, believe me, but IS there a higher being that would support murder and corruption? Not if he/ she is worth their salt there wouldn't be. No true leader would expect one to kill another in cold blood just to achieve what they believe is a better world, full of the same believers. Nothing good will ever come of killing another. It will always be a lose-lose situation, even if the circumstances behind it warrants this approach. I agree that a reciprocal action is essential to prevent such a horrendous terrorist act from happening again. Although I for one will be as saddened and remorseful for the loss of an Afghanistan child as I was for an American one today, or would be for a Canadian one who could be lost tomorrow. It is beyond comprehension that killing and maiming has become a solution and not just the cause of world-upset today.

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