Do you want vengeance or peace? Because you cannot have both [View all]

[nadine_mn]

First let me say the obvious...my heart goes out to everyone in Paris. I cannot imagine the horror, fear and sadness that is being felt.

Secondly, I completely understand the desire to bomb the shit out of whoever did this (which at the time of this post, ISIS has claimed responsibility). You hurt me or someone I love, I will hurt you.

But cannot we all acknowledge by now that violence, esp against groups like ISIS and Al Queda, only fuels more violence? Boots on the ground, bombings, drone attacks...that has done nothing to stop this war. This is not like previous wars where both sides had something to lose.

Attacking terrorists has really only resulted in two things...horrific loss of life and justification for the attacks on the Western world. There has been no better recruiting video for ISIS than the nightly news.

Terrorists don't fear death, many welcome it because they feel they will be rewarded in the afterlife. We aren't going to scare them into stopping violence by threatening to bomb or send in troops...because that is exactly the response they want.

And of course, the more people start broad brushing all Muslims as terrorists and spewing bigotry, the easier it is to recruit more terrorists. We start to live up to their propaganda.

Thousands of soldiers and innocent civilians have lost their lives or had their lives completely shattered by the "war on terror". It's not working, and we owe it to the memory of those lost to do better.
I do not know the answer to how to stop the terrorists. I only know that our current strategy isn't the solution. My fear is that a knee jerk reaction of violent retaliation (which again, I completely understand and if I were a Parisian I would probably be completely advocating for) will only create more horrific nights like last night.