War Zone, Lost Lives

In retrospect, it’s easy to say that a passager plane shouldn’t have flown over a war zone, but it was allowed and a tragedy ensued. Flight MH17 was downed with about 250 people on board in eastern Ukraine. I’m upset that such things can still happen, but how it happened isn’t clear to me.

We all wish we could know what happened, but I don’t expect we’ll know for some time. Because another victim of wars is often the truth.

When I listen to the media these days, I feel like the war propaganda machine is raging on. Endless blabing going on for months about how Russia is an oppressive regime and is arming groups to destabilize nearby countries would make you think the country is worse than Saudi Arabia. Some critical thinking however would show that even the United States are not above such tendencies. Politicians claiming to have solid evidences of Russian involvement in this event reminds me of claims of weapons of mass destruction in Irak. Perhaps those proofs are not fabricated this time, but I know better than to trust a politician brandishing “proofs” when attempting to rally support for a military intervention in a foreign country.

Let’s not forget that in the lands below those skies ordinary people are dying too. When an artillery shells falls at the wrong place, a city can lose drinking water. Or a building can burst in flames with people inside. Western media tend to not say much about these now countless tragedies on the ground, but I do sympathise with whoever is still living there too, as well as with all those who had to flee the region.

Demonizing your enemies, calling them terrorists, ruthless dictators, or maniactical expansionists only serves one purpose: making peace look foolish. It makes people believe the enemy is some sort of sub-human, that there’s no hope of dialogue or peaceful resolution, no hope of satisfactory compromise. This is the language of those who seek war.

War is the disease we should be fighting against. My wish is that this tragedy becomes an occasion for peace talks instead of a justification for killing more people in an even bigger war. The war in eastern Ukraine started with a political problem within Ukraine; it’ll end either with a political solution or it will not end well for anyone.