You're talking to the wrong people. In every culture, there's warmongers. God knows I'm one of them, LOL. Regardless, does that mean that I wouldn't give peace a chance? I'd be out of a job, but I've got college degrees to fall back on. Would it be nice to know that I could go anywhere in the world without worry of being kidnapped or beheaded? Hell yes it would.
The problem is, you can't release a flock of doves and make everyone hold hands. There are people out there who only know violence and savagery. You draw a cartoon depicting a Muslim spiritual leader as a suicide bomber, and what do they do to protest? Blow shit up.
Think back to school. If you looked the bully in the eye and said you don't believe in violence, and therefore refused to fight back, then you just lost your lunch money for the rest of the school year.
Raiding parties abound stormed Rome after they made the decree that their military should be disbanded.
WE are not the problem. The problem is that there are generations of people who know only violence, and see people with absolutely no will to fight as weak and easy prey. If you tell them that you are too civil to fight, they rejoice at the fact that you are not going to be fighting back, and they can stomp on your remains with no casualties.
Look at the Hezbollah. They attack Israel, kidnap soldiers, and when Israel goes in and blasts half their country away, they declared a victory because most of them did not die. That's similar to someone promising they'll knock your teeth out, and they punch you square in the mouth, and afterwards you stand up with blood running from your mouth and say, "HA HA! You said you'd knock my teeth out! I still have some! Guess that means I win the fight!"
If we pull out of Iraq right now, they'll do the same thing. Despite 7/10 of their country wasted by the conflict, they'll pop out from under their rocks and declare a victory just because we left before we killed them all. This is because they know nothing except being a warrior, and if you walk away, you surrender. This will inspire thousands more to join the ranks when they declare the win. Their message to the world will say nothing about the tens of thousands of terrorists killed, it will only say that they hung on and persevered until we finally surrendered and left.
There are violent people out there. They know nothing but this, and singing in a street corner isn't going to stop it. You'll just be the first ones they kill since you're an easy target. You have a guitar instead of a gun.
Would I give peace a chance? Yes, but not until the whole world is ready for it, and not just us.
In the meantime, refusing to fight means we hand everything to them with a smile and a cage full of doves.
How much evil must we tolerate to avoid the violence of war?
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made, and kept so, by the exertions of better men than himself." -- John Stewart Mill
