After the tragedy of 9/11 some people asked ‘why’? Why would 15 men, mainly from Saudi Arabia, give their life to kill so many men, woman and children? No one was justifying the killings but just trying to understand why? After the shock and questioning, our government turned to revenge, a war on terror. We went to war with two countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, one for the fact the government would not turn over suspects and one with a deliberate or mistaken identity as involved in the tragedy and of possessing a nuclear weapons.

Fourteen years later, after hundreds of thousands of death, civilians and military on both sides, the wars continue and both countries are in ruins with refuges all over the Middle East and beyond.

The war on terror quickly spread to other countries, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and Pakistan Syria. Now during the first seven years of the present president the US has bombed these seven countries and now there are many more terrorist who hate the US and our allies.

Since 9/11 there have been so many terrorist attacks that we seem almost immune them. We no longer ask the question why, but like in the example of the horrific attacks in Paris, immediately seek revenge and increase our bombings and killings in these countries. The more we lash out with drones, bombs and guns terrorism grows. The new terror groups now have more sophisticated weapons, many of them our weapons of war, have more territory and are more vicious killers full of hate and revenge.

Why the terrible attacks in Paris? Why do we insist overthrowing governments, often to replace by more horrendous ones? Why do we demonize our enemy and seek to kill them and people around them rather than follow the Gospel command of “love our enemy”. Would loving our enemy create as much animosity and hate as revenge and more killing does?

Our failure to ask “Why” only adds to the violence and killing on all sides. Our enemies know the US and allies by its actions, bombing and attacking people in these seven countries. We only know these enemies by their actions, bombing and killing of people. The vicious circle of hate and killing will only continue till people ask why.

Comments

Please send any comments on this post to . Let us know which day’s post your comments pertain to. If the comments are appropriate we will post them here for you.