In Cold Blood...........

In what circumstances might you agree to kill a baby...? Not talking about foetuses here........I mean gurgling ,dribbling, laughing , sweet smelling, chubby faced babies. Or...maybe it would be easier to kill a toddler...? No? Ok then.....an old person...a lovely old grandmother with a lined face from a lifetime of toil and suffering....a doting grandmother maybe...? The sort who carries around pictures of the grandchildren and beams with joy when she shows them off.
Still not feeling murderous enough? Baulking at the thought of blowing their legs and arms off...? Setting their clothes on fire....melting their skin...? Imagine the babies would really scream eh? Well...perhaps you'd be happier causing a piece of hot jagged metal to disembowel a pretty young girl on the verge of womanhood..? Too horrible to contemplate...? Then best you stick to tearing the face off of someone in a wheelchair.... ALL THIS IS HAPPENING IN THE LEBANON AND IN ISRAEL...........and in Iraq and Afghanistan....and God knows where.
How easy it must be to give the order to drop the bomb....fire the rocket....send out the suicide bomber.
We need to ask....we MUST ask......... Can it ever be right to kill and maim the innocents in pursuit of the guilty.......? Do we hold dear any higher level of morality that might forbid slaughtering bystanders........terrified civilians....screaming mothers ...the sick, the old, the weak.... how can we dismiss their hideous deaths , mutilation and indescribable agony as "collateral damage?" The bombs are aimed at the leaders of Hezbullah....of terrorist cells...at rocket sites.....but..........those who aim them and let loose their hell fires KNOW people like those down your street...........ordinary people like your family.........will die ....will be blinded...lose arms and legs...lose their skin to searing flames.......
Are there no principles so sacred that they whisper to us of the evil that we do....? The shame...the blame.........If we have a Maker.......How shall we answer to him?? If not.....how can we look at ourselves and not weep ??