The ancient Hindu scripture, the Bhagavard Gita reveals traditional ideas concerning war. Ajuna is having second thoughts as to the morality of war. He is speaking to Krishna, a Hindu deity:

"I do not see how any good can come from killing of my own kinsmen in battle, nor can I desire any subsequent victory, kingdom or happiness. I would consider it better for the sons of Dhrtarastra to kill me unarmed than to fight with them."

Krishna then urged him to fight, saying:

"Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible. No one is able to destroy the imperishable soul. He who thinks that the living entity is the slayer or is slain does not understand. For the soul there is nether birth or death. The soul can never be cut into pieces by a weapon, nor be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind. Knowing this you should not grieve for the body. Consider your specific duty, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting for religious principles. If however you do not fight this religious war, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter. People will always talk of you with infamy, and for one who has been honored , dishonor is worse than death. The great generals who have highly esteemed your name and fame will think that you have left the battlefield out of fear and will thus consider you a coward. Your enemies will describe you in unkind words and scorn your ability.. What could be more painful to you? Oh son of Kunti, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore get up and fight with determination.."

Today, war is complex, it threatens the very fabric and soul of our society. The consequences of war is not just death or injury, but chonic sickness and life long suffering. Gulf War syndrome is so insidious that it can even effect the soldier's unborn children. Bombs can kill innocent non-combatants from a distance. Chemicals, biological agents, and nuclear technology can infest, poison, and cause environmental devastation. Let's compare the warfare described above with a vastly divergent battle scene. Consider this first hand account of the Gulf War, which appeared in Macclean's Magazine.

"During the final two months that Paul Sullivan served in the Gulf War, he became convinced that the nightmarish environmental conditions were a far greater threat to his health than enemy soldiers. Day and night, the air was thick with black , acrid smoke from burning wells. The haze was so dense that Sullivan recalls entire days when he could not see as far as a meter in front of his face. Declared Sullivan: "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we were in the middle of something harmful."

Our security and safety is now threatened by the destructive technology of modern warfare. Alternatives to violence must be developed and refined as a way to promote understanding and peace. Ethnic pride, nationalism, and prejudice threaten global peace and harmony in the world. It is the us and them mentality. Ethnic disputes and hatreds feed each other and propagate malevolence as each new offense is in turn avenged. When a weak ethnic group is overwhelmed and oppressed by a stronger group, violent rebellion is the intrinsic impulse to resist oppression. Terrorism kills innocent people and fuels the fire of hatred. Submitting to injustice is not the only choice, non-violent resistance is a viable alternative.

Non-violence is to refrain from inflicting damage or injury, using alternative means to obtain a desired end. These means can vary from showering your enemy with love and goodwill to sanctions, boycotts and overt civil disobedience. One of the first appearances of the concept of nonviolence comes from the Christian teachings of loving your enemy and turning the other cheek. The historic Jesus was one of the first non-violent activists. He performed a protest in the Temple in Jerusalem to protest money changing. He was prosecuted, arrested and executed because he had aroused the ire of the religious and political establishment. He did not resist violently. He invoked his followers not to use physical force as a means of securing his release. Christians believe that he had divine powers. If so, he did not use these powers to stop his capital punishment. Throughout ancient and modern times, tyranny and oppression have reigned. The Crusades and the Inquisition slaughtered millions in the name of Christianity, actions that clash vividly with the religion's non-violent teachings. It is undeniable that oppression and tyranny must me opposed and that conflict must be resolved; but is violence the best method available? When ever possible reasoning and diplomacy is the preferable to resolve conflict. When this fails to bring a fair and just resolution; we must rely on the techniques of non-violence.

"The techniques of non-violence have a long history, but much information has been lost as historians were more concerned with violent wars than nonviolent struggles. The term "boycott" was originated in Ireland in the1880's, when the Irish peasants participated in several rent strikes and tax refusals against a one Captain Boycott. These techniques were used by social radicals and nationalist resisting foreign oppression. These ideas were expressed in writings by Leo Tolstoy, Henry David Thoreau and David Landauer. The early Quakers used this type of direct action to protest persecution. "

The American Revolutionary Movement and the effort to abolish slavery are examples of struggles that started though nonviolently, but whose ends were eventually resolved through violence at a terrible price in death and destruction. Could Independence for the America Colonies and Abolition of Slavery been achieved though non-violent means? Yes, but it would have taken time, patience, restraint, and much spiritual strength.

The viable use of nonviolence came to world wide recognition because of the teachings and actions of Mohandas K. Gandhi. The foundations of his beliefs came from the Hindu principle of "ahimsa" which stands for non-injury to living things in thought, word, and deed. Gandhi developed the technique of "satyagraha" which means firmness based on truth, which is the essence of being. He taught that all rulers are dependent for their power on submission, cooperation, and obedience of their subjects. Satyagraha was designed by Gandhi as a substitute to violence. Thousands of people died in the Indian's successful nonviolent struggle against the British. It is estimated that for India to achieve the same ends in a violent rebellion the price would have been millions of lives. This shows the great possibility of applying these techniques to the varied and perplexing conflicts of modern life. To those who doubted the universal power of non-violence,
Gandhi said:

"Of course, critics reasonably argue that non-violence pictured by me is not for the masses of mankind, it is possible only for a few highly developed persons. I have combated that view and suggested that, given proper training and proper leadership, non-violence can be practiced by the masses of mankind".

Gandhi's words ring true when we recall the success of non-violence in the Civil Rights struggle in the 1950's and 60's. With the astute training and capable leadership of Martin Luther King, great progress was made to improve the lot of African-Americans. Restaurant sit-ins and the bus boycott in Montgomery Alabama brought the cries of the American black's plight to the consciousness of the American people. As a result, the unfairness of segregation, housing and job discrimination were exposed to the light of day. Below the surface in America, there exists a white supremacist attitude as evidenced by recent burning of black churches and the appearance of hate mail and pamphlets. Racism has gone underground only to appear here and there, in the corporate offices of Texaco and in Denny's restaurants. As a reaction to those people who still hold racist feelings in their hearts, all right thinking Americans should stand up against racism in honor of Martin Luther King who has validated non-violence. We should all emulate the teachings of Dr. King by reacting to hate with love. He preached:

"To our most bitter opponents we say: We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet you physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will and we will continue to love you. We can not in all justice obey your unjust laws, because non-co-operation with evil is as much a moral obligation as co-operation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

If ever a war was justified, it was World War II. The world was torn apart by vicious Nazi racism and terrorism. Although, to reasonable thinking, using non-violent action against such ruthlessness appears futile, Gandhi repeatedly appealed to the allies to fight Nazi tyranny with non-violence. He was in favor of the their cause but warned:

"Allied violence sufficient to defeat the Germans would contribute to the further brutalization of human nature, to increased militarism, to the adoption of fascist methods to enforce obedience, and to allied slaughter and destruction in excess of that of the Germans. If liberty and democracy are truly to be saved, they will only be by non-violent resistance, no less brave, no less glorious, than violent resistance".

The allied victory was undeniably a beneficial event , especially because it stopped the Nazi's genocide program, but let's look at some of the less desirable consequences. The production and use of atomic weapons, the cold war, the nuclear stockpile, and American militarism. The atom bomb dropped upon Japan was an excess of destruction and has added to the brutalization of human nature. For three decades, the world was in the frozen grip of a cold war threatening at any moment to heat up into world annihilation. The cold war is over but the missiles are still there and even an unfortunate accident could trigger disaster. Before World War II , the predominant political attitude was isolationism. It was thought that the United States should not get involved in foreign conflicts. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, a bill to disband the Army was defeated by only a few votes. After the war, the prevalent U.S. foreign policy had become interventionism. This was exemplified by the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, and the Gulf War, with many minor interventions in between. This has continued up to the present with threats of renewed conflict against Sudam Hussien. We have military bases all over the world and have invested billions and billions of dollars in very sophisticated weaponry. Movies and television have repetitively reinforced the notion that the best way to resolve conflict and resist oppression is through violence. This "Rambo" mentality is engraved in our collective consciousness emphasizing vengeance over justice and hate over mercy and forgiveness. The true power of non-violence is that it depends on truth and justice alone for its success. A violent war depends on force; the side with the most powerful weapons will win, "might makes right". Non-violence depends on far deeper human values: truth, justice and love. Therefore: with much courage, faith, perseverance and self sacrifice, a just cause can win out against overwhelming physical force.

Today, the stakes are higher! Not only are we threatened by nuclear weapons but unthinkable devastation could be wrecked upon us by the chemical and biological threat. Missiles can deliver poisonous gas, chemicals could contaminate our water supply, and devious new bacteria and viruses could spread unthinkable epidemics though out the world. Valuable lessons concerning the dangers and mistakes of modern warfare can be gained from the Gulf War and its terrible aftermath, the Gulf War Syndrome.

The above mentioned article in Maclean's magazine continues:

"The causes of the Gulf War syndrome remain a mystery. The American Legion provides a wide list of possible origins: fumes from burning oil wells, contact with crude oil, inoculations, pesticides that were liberally sprayed over all military vehicles in the desert, smoke from burning landfills, insect bites, and poor sanitary conditions."

"U.S. and other officials are investigating another possible syndrome cause: depleted uranium. Used by the Pentagon to coat some artillery shells and tanks, depleted uranium is so hard that it protects tanks from enemy fire and allows outgoing coated shells to smash through armor plate. However, on impact it releases particles of radioactive uranium oxide."

Time Magazine reports:

"The Pentagon believes up to 20,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to such poisons when they destroyed chemical weapons at the huge Kamisiyah depot in southern Iraq. But one leading investigator, James Tuite says the emphasis on Kamisiyah is just the Pentagon's way of denying the scope of the problem. Tuite, who did a ground-breaking Senate study on the topic in 1993, believes soldiers are ill because of widespread attacks on Iraq's chemical-weapons factories and depots during the 39-day air war that began, Jan. 16, 1991. During that assault, the U.S. led alliance destroyed 75% of Iraq's chemical-weapon production capability, along with 21 chemical-weapon sites."If these adverse conditions affected our troops, who were exposed to this hellish environmental soup for just a few days, what about innocent Iraqi civilians? The Pentagon denies that there were any long lasting effects from Desert Storm on Iraqi civilians. But many doubts and questions remain.

After the astounding events of September 11 and the forth-coming biological terrorism that has disrupted our way of life, the impulse to react violently to such atrocious acts is overwhelming. To defeat the Taliban and root out all their terrorist networks, now, appears to be a daunting task, which would require the sacrifice of many lives. The world would be in danger of an excess of violence previously unknown in world history. We would also suffer additional terrorist attacks as the cycle of violence accelerates. It seems unthinkable to negotiate with or to concede anything to people who would perpetuate such horrendous acts. To respond with an inefficient amount of force to accomplish our goals would be senseless because the terrorist threat would continue with an escalating cycle of violence. We should seize the moral high ground and use all non-violent means at our disposal to sanction, ostracize, and banish all governments who give sanctuary to these criminals. The U.S. should use all of its resources, prestige and political power to seek justice for these terrible crimes. The use of the varied techniques of non-violence to achieve these ends would be even a more difficult task than to resolve these problems violently. Our success would depend on our inner spiritual strength and resolution. As a result of a non-violent campaign against terrorism many lives would be saved and the world would enter into a new era of peace and cultural understanding.

The time has come for humanity to come of age! Our collective consciousness must rise above petty bigotry and vengeance. Problems and international conflicts of the future will be enormous. We must speak out and stand up against injustice whenever it should occur. Since history has taught us that violence even for a righteous cause begets more violence, it is imperative that all future conflicts be resolved non-violently.