Do Justice. Period. Human stupidity is very much in the news today, as violence escalates in the Middle East and the bodies are counted in yesterday's train bombings in India. A retired U.S. military man on one of the cable news channels is making typically stupid military noises about fiting al-Qaeda in India no matter the cause that provoked the Indian bombings, because 'al-Qaeda wants the world'. Not "Kashmir wants out of India to join Pakistan, in which it should have been included in 1947", but "al-Qaeda wants the world", and thus we must oppose 'giving in to terrorism' by keeping Kashmir part of India, which it should have been permitted to leave 59 years ago!
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Israel has endlessly committed itself to doing injustice to Palestinians, Lebanese (it has invaded Lebanon again; ah, the Jews are so brite! The last invasion of Lebanon went so well!), and other Arabs, some of them hundreds of miles from Israel's borders, on the same 'theory' — if one could call Israel's insanely stupid, emotional rather than intellectual behavior a "theory" — that to do anything but violence in reaction to violence is to show weakness and thus incite more violence. And the beat(down) goes on.
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There was a guy from that part of the world who lived about 2,000 years ago who saw the folly in an-eye-for-an-eye and said:

Whoa! The way to end violence is not by doing more violence but by refusing to return violence for violence. Defuse rage by doing justice and bringing out the humanity in your enemy, not by dehumanizing him so you can justify continuing to do injustice.

The actual words ascribed to him are more poetic than that, but amount to the same thing:

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ... You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ... Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:38-48 RSV)

It's a radical concept that, amazingly, actually works. Not always, but more often than Zionists, Hindus, military men, Republicans, and other brutes want you to think. They have gone very far out of their way to keep you from thinking that doing justice works. They tell us we "can't give in to terrorism" or "treason" or "separatism", and even trying other tacks to accommodate the other side short of complete surrender to "demands" from "the enemy" would be the wrong thing to do "right now".
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There have been innumerable wars and smaller violent conflicts only because people's pride — not really anything more exalted than that — would not permit them to admit they were wrong, see the other side, and do justice.
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King George III refused to admit American colonials to Parliament but insisted he had the right to tax them without their consent, and when they said "No taxation without representation", he sent over 30,000 armed men to force a population of about 1.8 million to submit. We did not submit but fought back. Had it not been for France, the Netherlands, and Spain, George III might have triumphed, but at what cost? Would the colonies ever have resumed enthusiastic, patriotic participation in the Empire? Or would a greater conflict merely have been put off to an inevitable future someday?
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Palestine won't submit to Israeli overlordship, but keeps fiting. It has no France, Netherlands, and Spain to fite alongside it, but keeps fiting anyway. Will violence ever crush Palestinians and create a normal situation? Or was the creation of Israel an insanely stupid mistake that can never succeed?
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India refused to let the people of Kashmir decide what country they want to belong to. Sixty years later, India has still not won their allegiance, and now both Pakistan and India have nuclear weapons.
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How long do you hold onto a bad idea? At what cost? When is too long? How much is too much to lose? If the price of keeping Kashmir is full-scale nuclear war, is it really worth it in order "not to give in to terrorists"? If the price of defending Israel is to have a suitcase atom bomb go off in Midtown Manhattan or the middle of Washington, DC, is that a reasonable price to pay for "not giving in to terrorists"? Your call.
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For me, everything is plain. It is never wrong to do justice. There is never a wrong time to do justice. There is never a wrong reason to do justice. Doing justice is always the right thing to do.
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It doesn't matter if it is violence that induces India to give in to demands that it hold a fair and free election to determine the will of the Kashmiri people, to remain part of India or join Pakistan, which the United Nations said it should do in 1949. This is the concept of the "wake-up call". Sometimes people have to be shocked out of apathy, lethargy, stupidity.
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Plainly India expects to lose a plebiscite, so has decided to thwart the will of the people and hold onto a meaningless, economically useless area for reasons beyond the comprehension of sane people. Wikipedia says that the conflict over Pakistan has already killed 100,000 people! — without nuclear war. The beat goes on.
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Violence is the last resort of populations, not the first. It flashes up when people cannot resolve matters calmly, and feel that there is no alternative but violence to protect their rights. Sometimes people are too close to an issue to see the right and wrong of it, so outsiders have to decide. That's why we have counseling, mediation, arbitration, courts, and the United Nations. But when the relevant authority renders a decision and one side says "No!", then the force of law must drop like a ton of bricks and force compliance. That's what police and "police actions" are for, not just to break up the fite but to carry out the orders of the counselor/mediator/arbitrator/court/UN. The world has not done that with India, nor with Israel. Adamant fools refuse to do justice, and are allowed to get away with it because they are powerful in themselves or have powerful friends who co-conspire in injustice, also for reasons that no sane person can comprehend.
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Justice defuses violence. What could be plainer? So I repeat:
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It is never wrong to do justice. There is never a wrong time to do justice. There is never a wrong reason to do justice. Doing justice is always the right thing to do.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,544.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 2:21 PM