by Jose Astorga

Created on: March 22, 2008

We live in incendiary times. The world is changing at a rapid pace and so is the face of war. To not keep pace with our changing environment is fatal. However, as fast as times change, some things remain the same. War results in mass destruction and civilian deathsunchanging.

The United States has angered much of the civilized world in some form or fashion by what seems to be continued uninvited interferences and an inability to efficiently finish what we start. Apparently, we know what is best for the rest of world even though the rest of the world does not always see it that way. The result has been an escalation of violence against all things American in certain parts of the world in the form of terrorism.

To make matters worse, much of the terrorism we are fighting is based on religious fanaticismthe worst kind of fanaticism that can exist. Why? Because murder is sanctified. In a world where religious and moral lines are completely blurred, there will be many civilian deaths. In fact, in the war on terrorism there are no civilians.

In the world of terrorism, every man, woman and child is a potential soldier. Americans seem to have a hard time with this concept. So we'll strap a teenager with grenades and an M-16 and tell him to blindly serve his country against an enemy he can't see. Then we fret about civilian deaths. We can't and we shouldn't; we should fret about war, its reasons, its consequences and the future of this earth. Collateral damage is unavoidable in war. But for the soldier with a moral foundation based on valuing human life, collateral damage is not blind.

Humans are prone to weakness. The more spoiled a human becomes the weaker he becomes. People living in Somalia or the Middle East are not spoiled. They have been living with war for a long time. Terrorists eat their meals just as easily as they will burn an enemy, decapitate an enemy or fly a plane into an enemy's symbol of power killing thousands of people. Terrorists don't see civilians when looking at the color of our skin or the lines of our borders. They are fighting a war against an enemy. Americans are "shocked and awed" when we get a glimpse of reality for other areas of the world because we are protected from experiencing the facts of war by the government and the media. People in Somalia and the Middle East live war every day.

I attribute the escalation of violence within the United States to mass medication, media sensationalism, and the proliferation of violence in video games, cartoons, and sport. The result is a dulling of our senses. In countries where war, violence and repression are common day occurrences the senses are dulled and humanity is all but eviscerated. Their lives are not filtered by television parental guidelines; reality is their bane and killing is part of their reality.

Humans are probably the only species capable of rendering themselves extinct. The way to extinction is led by corrupt and greedy governments and ruthless dictators skilled at keeping their followers tame and ignorant. The inevitable result is war and war is human kind's way of accumulating wealth and controlling or eliminating the weaker. Nature cleanses the world; humans kill each other for sport.

War results in unbridled mass destruction. Terrorism is a new kind of war to the United States that requires quick and decisively brutal action against a chameleon who wants to die in the name of faith or for a particular cause. Casualties are unavoidable.

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