Idealistic Way to End All War

The number of American troops killed has passed 600 and rising. The body count of Iraqis killed is still believed to be in the double-digit thousands and rising as the count of other troops from countries allied with the Bush regime also increases. Still, the argument here in the U.S.A. continues, "Do we bring them home, or leave them there and keep adding more to replace the dead and seriously injured." This grave question and the circumstances surrounding the U.S. military presence in Iraq remind me of the war my father was sent to fight when I was a child - Vietnam.

If I had the means, I'd send a shovel with a message to every one responsible for this war, which includes the civilians that approve of it. The message would be simple: "You have a new job: digging the graves of the people that die as a result of this war and all violence in Iraq that would most likely not have happened, had it not been for this war. You receive no monetary compensation for this, but you'll get room and board from behind bars. Your assets will be used to pay expenses resulting from this war - to compensate the losses of tax dollars, Iraqi jobs lost, and other financial losses. If you are the sole provider for minor children, you'll be required to work extra hard and longer to earn provisions for them.

If we had laws to enforce such consequences, maybe people would think twice before waging, supporting, promoting, and/or profiting from war. Laws forcing people that are, in some way or another, responsible for preventable war could be a way to pressure the media to truthfully report facts surrounding political drives to abuse their power to send our troops to war. Such laws could pressure U.S. citizens to become better informed and more thoughtful as a way to discourage such citizens from jumping on the war-mongering bandwagon. These laws could discourage lawmakers from waging unnecessary war, and to prohibit these lawmakers from changing the laws that must be held in place for as long as the human race survives. Indeed, laws like these should also apply to officials at the Pentagon and military leaders serving under the Pentagon's rule.

We could establish a system where supporters of preventable war are chosen at random to determine which graves they'll dig. That way, we'll have some that dig the graves of fallen soldiers after their bodies are returned home, while others dig the graves of fallen civilians in the foreign land our troops were sent to invade.

Digging graves and burying the fallen isn't enough. These people should be forced to view the corpses up close and in person, regardless of the state the bodies are in at the time they view them. They should also be forced to face and humble themselves to the grieving families of the killed loved ones they must bury.

Such mandatory punishment would discourage people from wanting wars that must be prevented. If the world's masses adopted these terms in every nation, maybe we'd end most, hopefully all, wars. Then we can all learn to get along, respect each other and live in peace so that we can address other issues plaguing people throughout the world, to unite as one to make this world a better place for everyone.