As I watched the first news reports of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, I was of course horrified. 

There is no excuse whatsoever for the slaughter of civilians and their children as they go about their ordinary lives. There is nothing to be gained or nothing to negotiate. Such murderous rage is pure evil.

I was also filled with a sense of dread I have never had before, even watching planes purposely fly into the World Trade Center towers or American citizens violently disrupting the function of their government. 

The consequences to come in Gaza are obvious and equally horrific. Already, thousands of Palestinians and their children have been killed or left destitute as the Israelis root out the terrorists hiding among them.

I have empathy with Israel, a nation born of the Holocaust and resolved to fight any anti-Jewish aggression. I can only imagine what the U.S. would do if thousands of Mexicans crossed the border and did what Hamas did. 

But I also wonder what violence Israel has provoked by their ongoing refusal to look at solutions offering Palestinians a homeland and equal citizen status. 

Are they reaping what they’ve sown with their hard right government?

I have empathy with the Palestinians in Gaza. They are not terrorists. And they have no place to go to get out of the way of the Israeli war machine that came to annihilate Hamas terrorists. 

But they have knowingly let the terrorists live among them. Some sympathize with the terrorists. And they have refused efforts in the past to provide a homeland that required some compromise.

I see so many in our government and society choosing to pick a side in this fight. I don’t see this as helpful.

Instead, I wish we were talking about how to avoid such human disasters, because I don’t currently have any good ideas about how to do so. 

At this point, I feel helpless. All I’ve got is a stronger sense that we need to provide safe asylum to those stuck in the path of war. And we need to provide humanitarian aid to people whose infrastructure to feed, house and heal them has been destroyed.

We also need to expect governments to bear a tremendous responsibility to wisely use war as a last resort. Not only soldiers are killed or maimed. Civilians are, too, through no fault of their own. 

Their means to live, be it food or water or shelter, are also destroyed. Returning soldiers are morally injured and suffer from PTSD. They turn to alcohol and drugs to self medicate, and when that doesn’t work, they kill themselves.

My horror and dread have me thinking back through U.S. wars. Could not compromises with King George have avoided the Revolutionary War? Probably not. 

We couldn’t resolve the contradiction of slavery and democracy without a Civil War? 

What threat to our very existence did we vanquish in the Spanish American War? The Mexican War? Vietnam? Iraq? 

Did the people in our government really calculate the total human cost and make every effort to avoid war? Or is it too easy to “appear strong?”

My life experience is with the Vietnam War. The draft ended the year I was to be called. As always, history gives us perspective. 

Vietnam was a colony of France. They wanted independence, just like we did 200 years earlier.

They wanted our help after World War I. We didn’t help and communist Russia did. 

When the French were defeated, we ended up stepping in to “stop the spread of Communism,” based on a State Department “domino theory.”

About 59,000 Americans were killed. Over 3 million Vietnamese were killed. Vietnam today has a communistic government. And the U.S. has diplomatic relations with Vietnam, trade agreements and regards them as an ally opposed to Chinese belligerence.

The Vietnam War is also a rare example of the will of the people to force their government to stop a war. 

The cost was societal upheaval, cold wars between generations and the disrespect of a nation toward its returning war veterans.

You decide – was it worth it?

Some war is necessary and there is very little ambiguity about having arrived at no other choice. Murderous evil exists. 

Our country was attacked in World War II and we helped our allies defeat fascist aggression against sovereign countries with the right of self-determination and government. 

Ukraine is fighting such a fight today against Russia. It boggles the mind that some in our government no longer want to help a country willing to defend itself against barbaric aggression.

My dread persists. I know of only two things I can do. 

One is to note Jewish and Palestinian people around me, ask if they have family in the Middle East, and tell them they will be included in my prayers. 

The other is to honor our veterans, and accept every citizen’s responsibility to insist our government only puts them in harm’s way when no other option is possible.