Terrorism
by Jessica Russell
Edmonton, Kentucky
Every morning when you wake up you hear about another vicious act against the United States. War is not a glorious act, it causes the loss of innocent people and pain and suffering. [The events of September 11, 2001] made me think about all I had done. It made me wonder if [such a thing could happen in New York City] then why not anywhere. I [wondered] if I [had] told my dad I loved him today. I wondered how many people at the World Trade Center didn't say they loved their loved ones before leaving to work that day. [The] destruction [was] not only to historical buildings, but to our hearts and souls.
What is Peace? Peace is a word that is uttered almost as frequently as truth, beauty, and love. It may be just as elusive to define as these other virtues. Common synonyms for peace include amity, friendship, harmony, concord, tranquility, repose, quiescence, truce, pacification, and neutrality. Likewise, the peacemaker is the pacifier, mediator, intermediary, and intercessor. While some of these descriptions are appropriate, they are still quite limited in describing both the nature of peace and the role of the peacemaker. Any attempt to articulate the nature of peace and peacemaking, therefore, must address those conditions which are favorable to their emergence. Freedom, human rights, and justice are among such prerequisites. Also included are proactive strategies such as conflict resolution, nonviolent action, community building, and democratization of authority.
The peace process additionally must acknowledge and contend with its alternative -- war-- because of the high value status of violence. For example, while war has brought out the worst kind of behavior in humans, it has also brought out some of the best. Aside from relieving boredom and monotony, war has been shown to spawn self-sacrifice, loyalty, honor, heroism, and courage. It is well known that suicide rates decline during war. Also, war has helped to bring about significant social changes such as racial and sexual integration, freedom, democracy and a sense of national pride. Because of its apparent utilitarian value and its ability to enervate, violence has been solidly embedded in the national psyche of many countries. As a result, its elimination will be no easy feat.
Nevertheless some people insist that "peace is the absence of violence in all its forms --physical, social, psychological, and structural." But this, as a definition, is unduly negative in that it fails to provide any affirmative picture of peace or its ingredients. Perhaps that picture must come, as some suggest, from a close examination of the "nature of causes, reasons, goals of war in order that we might ... find ways of reaching human goals without resorting to force. That process should help us uncover the possible conditions of Peace."
In its most myopic and limited definition, peace is the mere absence of war. This definition as a "vacuous, passive, simplistic, and unresponsive escape mechanism too often resorted to in the past -- without success." This definition also commits a serious oversight: it ignores the residual feelings of mistrust and suspicion that the winners and losers of a war harbor toward each other.
The subsequent suppression of mutual hostile feelings is not taken into account by those who define peace so simply. Their stance is that as long as people are not actively engaged in overt, mutual, violent, physical and destructive activity, then peace exists. This, of course, is just another way of defining cold war. In other words, this simplistic definition is too broad because it allows us to attribute the term "peace" to states of affairs that are not truly peaceful.
What is war? WAR - A contention by force; or the art of paralyzing the forces of an enemy.
It is either
public or private. It is not intended here to speak of the latter.
Jessica Russell
"Public war is either civil or national. Civil war is that which is waged between two parties, citizens or members of the same state or nation. National war is a contest between two or more independent nations carried on by authority of their respective governments.
War is not only an act, but a state or condition, for nations are said to be at war not only when their armies are engaged, so as to be in the very act of contention, but also when, they have any matter of controversy or dispute subsisting between them which they are determined to decide by the use of force, and have declared publicly, or by their acts, their determination so to decide it.
National wars are said to be offensive or defensive. War is offensive on the part of that government which commits the first act of violence; it is defensive on the part of that government which receives such act; but it is very difficult to say what is the first act of violence. If a nation sees itself menaced with an attack, its first act of violence to prevent such attack, will be considered as defensive.
To legalize a war it must be declared by that branch of the government entrusted by the Constitution with this power. And it seems it need not be declared by both the belligerent powers. By the Constitution of the United States, Art. I, Congress is invested with power "to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; and they have also the power to raise and support armies, and to provide and maintain a navy."
I [found] my definitions of war and peace on the internet and I got my quotes from the Internet.
Here are some famous quotes:
"Our scientific power has
outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
Martin
Luther King, Jr.
"The abolition of war requires the development of effective nonviolent alternatives to military struggle" Gene Sharp
"But war will only end after a great labor has been performed in altering men's moral ideals, directing them to the good of all mankind and not only of the separate nations into which men happen to have been born." Bertrand Russell
"Peace is not
merely the absence of war but the presence of justice, of law, of order--in
short, of government."
Albert Einstein
Editors note: This essay was posted because Jessica obviously put thought and research into her submittal. However it did not address the issue of terrorism as suggested in the rules and there was no evidence that the required reading had been done as no answers to the questions accompanied this essay. It is not therefore, eligible for a prize.