Right on!! Amen to that. Peace.

“You coward, lay down your arms before your head gets cut off” - Hun Sen

The way I have always seen it, is that if I lay down my weapon, my head will be cut off before I have a chance to pick the weapon back up.
To me that is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
That's just me though, and I understand that others don't see where I'm coming from either.

I LOVE YOU AND THE WAY YOU THINK EVY!!!!!

TC: Thanks for the comment (and to you others too!). I think I understand exactly where you're coming from, and what a great illustration you used to make the point(bringing a knife to a gunfight). Each side perpetually attempts to outdo the other (to no avail), and so we always end up with the escalation option. The only other option that I can see is de-escalation (I'm not talking Baghdad here, I'm speaking 'humanity'), but for it to have a chance of working, the only critical question to resolve is why does everyone feel the need to even take the weapons in the first place. That's where any permanent lasting peace must start. In other words, instead of building and using the better weapons to get the edge, the other option would be to stop the fighting by figuring out what is causing it in the first place. I don't mean the politics or beliefs or nationalities of it. I mean the REASONS.

It would take unbelievably strong leadership to achieve anything like that, and that is certainly no longer an option in the west where elections are bought and rigged now just as we accuse them of being in third world coutries.

I guess I crow and bleat too much about this. It just rips my heart out to see what is happening, because we value life so much here. We say our soldiers and fighting men and women make the "supreme sacrifice" for their country, and then send them to be blown up by a handmade bomb (in the day and age of nuclear weapons---how ironic). The life of that warrior hasn't bought a thing, it hasn't won a thing, it hasn't moved the resolution of the war one iota closer. It has created a life and family ruined. Forever. We are no less in danger in our bedrooms and kitchens from terrorists as a result of that young soul dying for "us", and dying too early.

That's why I keep bleating about stopping the madness. (obviously, it has to be all-inclusive, it can't be one-sided, or you get the knife at the gunfight situation....that of course is the realistic problem faced in any war or dispute; that is why it won't ever happen...sadly.)

So, in my mind, the question I ask myself is : "do we just sit back and let poop happen to us, or do we work at avoiding the next one if we can?". I certainly can't do much except let my views be known, lobby my M.P. and hope that some of it has some resonance somewhere with somebody.

And please don't get me wrong...I fully appreciate that your views are different than mine, and I have some understanding of why (our separate country's histories, for one thing!). I would never disrepect an opposing view, but I'll certainly discuss it!

Again, thanks for sharing your views.