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To: John Chen who wrote (110480)	10/14/2000 1:06:14 PM
From: Eric Wells	Respond to of 164685

Will you fight back with the 'force' you have in your hand. John - I like to consider myself a pacifist - although I support the US military and I do support military action when it is justified. Of course determining when military action is justified is a difficult thing. For example, I personally believe US involvement in Viet Nam was unjustified - I believe the US should not have gotten involved, and I believe that the fighting that resulted in the deaths of two million Vietnamese and some 50,000 Americans as well as numerous Cambodians and Laotians was a very big mistake. That being said, I believe that US involvement in World War II in both Europe and the Pacific was justified - I feel that the governments in Germany and Japan that were bent on world domination needed to be stopped. I am completely opposed to terrorist attacks on civilians - I see no justification for such acts. I'm also completely opposed to the killing of children - again, there is no justification - there is no good cause to explain the killing of the Palestinian child that we all saw killed on television two weeks ago. I am also opposed to violent acts such as that we witnessed earlier this week of the mob killing of two Israeli soldiers - there was no reason to kill those soldiers - it was an ugly demonstration of violent mob hatred. I believe that peaceful negotiations should always be pursued before resorting to violence. Gandhi succeeded in getting the British to leave India without throwing a single stone or firing a shot - rather through passive resistance, he showed the British how stupid they were in their oppressive treatment of Indians - and they left in embarrassment. Nelson Mandella played a lead role in the successful dismantling of apartheid in South Africa - from a jail cell. But there are times when violence is necessary. Hitler could not have been stopped without major military action. And deciding when to resort to violence is a difficult thing to do. But when circumstances force one to resort to violence to protect oneself or one's country or to restore order at some place in the world, it should not be done with any sense of pride. We should not honor the destruction of Dresden or Hiroshima - nor should we find honor in the deaths of millions of Japanese and German soldiers in World War II. Rather, I feel we should view the taking of life of one human by another as an ugly and terrible thing that should only be pursued when all other avenues of seeking peace and justice have been exhausted. Thanks, -Eric