Kiona-Benton High School
Benton City, Washington
War and Peace Essay
Teacher:Dea Podhajsky
Jeff Linehan
11th Grade
WAR and PEACE
A wise, unknown author once said “Peace is rare: Less than 8% of the time, since the beginning of recorded time, has the world been entirely at peace. In a total of 3,530 years, only 286 years have been warless. Eight thousand treaties have been broken in this time.”
How sad that this quote is true. How sad this quote describes human nature so very well. People in general can always find something wrong with anything, and they will betray others to fight for what they think is right, no matter how outrageous it may seem. The nature of human beings is “misery loves company”, and if one group hurts or feels persecuted, that group bands together and many times retaliates so others will hurt also.
The human race always has seems to find something to fight about, whether it is land, leaders, or looks. It is often that radical leader, such as Adolph Hitler and Osama Bin Laden that take their crusades to the extreme. Often men such as these have a distorted vision of a Utopian world and are able to persuade others to join in their quest of perfection. The results, we have seen, can be disastrous. World War II and the acts of September 11, 2001 are epic examples of tragedies that result from this mindset.
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime and their collaborators killed over 6 million Jews in their quest for a “perfect race”. Many Germans felt Hitler was a great leader with a vision and were blindly loyal, until fatalities began to climb and other countries became threatened.
A “modern day Hitler”, Osama Bin Laden has successfully persuaded the Taliban forces in Afghanistan to exert an extremist lifestyle within the country. He has been instrumental in guiding terrorist activities against the United States. The acts of September ll, 2001 killed over 5,000 innocent Americans and people from over 40 different countries.
Albert Einstein once said, “I don’t know what kinds of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought with – stone clubs.” The weapons of war have become more sophisticated with time. In the Revolutionary War, muskets, bayonets and cannons were weapons of choice. The nuclear bomb changed history with the annihilation of Hiroshima. During Desert Storm, heat guided missiles and mines exploding were filmed and broadcast across television for those of us far away from the action to witness the destruction.
The weapons of war have become more sophisticated, but the emotions of war have remained the same. Conflict of ideas, whether over land, leaders or looks seems to be the underlying cause of war. Fights over land, disputes over leadership, or leaders with misguided ideas/ideals, or a difference in cultures or religions seems to lead to war. The thing that starts most wars is an idea whether it is a good idea or bad idea if people don’t like it, then there will always be something to fight about. All through history you can read about ideas that led to chaos. And not all the ideas have to be bad ones, such as the thought that all human beings are created equal. Our own country fought about that idea. The only way that we are going to get past fighting is to accept the fact that people are different.
Albert Einstein also said, “To preserve peace, we need weapons of smaller and men of larger caliber.” Mankind continues to hope for peace, but peace seems to elude most of us. To preserve peace we need to practice tolerance for others ideas and ways of lives. People in general need to realize that just because we have the bomb or the gun it doesn’t give us the right to kill each other based on the way we live our lives. Peace is a common ground, and the only way to reach that common ground, is for people to stick up for what they believe in, but at the same time have an open mind about what others believe.
Peace is definitely something for which we strive. We need to stop making weapons of mass destructions, and focus on the things that we can control, and that’s how we act. We can’t control how others want to think and we can’t make them believe what we want them to believe. The only thing that we can do is to try to understand why people do what they do and tolerate the differences in us all. And hope for peace.