Nick,
Unfortunately people die during war. Do you really think any sane person likes this? I find these images extremely disturbing as well.
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=56
not because they show any grotesque images, but because of what they represent. These were children that will remember these things the rest of their lives and who will be scarred by it. Did anyone even know this was happening? Nope, not sexy, CNN wasn't around and so it went unreported. Tragedies like this are happening all over the world.
Hezbollah(spelling?) is just as much to blame about this. They admitted they did not expect this response. They admitted they routinely captured soldiers and citizens of Israel to attain release of their soldiers. At some point they had to know it was going to explode and it did. I am not saying it was the right or wrong response by Israel, but it was going to happen at some point. As everyone pointed out, this part of the world is dealing with tensions that are thousands of years old. They are not going to be overcome in a few weeks, months or years. Some parts of the Middle East are not much different then they were when these tensions started, those hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
I don't know anyone here who would not be happy to see everyone in the world throw down their weapons, pick up a coke and sing "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing". Trust me as a dad, I want my children to grow up in a safe world. I grew up during the Reagan/Russia era where Nuclear Weapons were a real threat. I wish Bird Flu was the worst epidemic my kids ever have to face, but the cold reality is that people cannot put aside differences en mass. The leaders of both groups could call a cease fire tomorrow and some nutjob fringe group on either side would probably exploit it.
I hate to see people jumping down your throat for being a pacifist or optomist. At your age you should be wanting to change the injustices of the world. You should want to take down the evil corporations and fix the wrongs in society. As you get older you realize not every company is evil and not every problem has an easy solution. (I am sure you realize this already, but you are optomistic and young and think it can be changed.) One of my favorite quotes ever was by Mohammed Ali, and I think it states better then I ever could the reality of aging and viewpoints...
"If you view life at 50 the same way you did at 20, then you have wasted thirty years of your life."
Sorry if this was condescending, it was not meant to be. It was meant to show the differences in viewpoints. Where you see horrific atrocities, we see them too, but we have also seen them many times, and feel we may better understand the dynamics that created this. As horrible as it is, it will happen again when you are 30, 40, 50, 60....
If we cannot get along here - and plenty of the people on here can't - how would you expect people to get along in the real world.
When I was younger, I used to think that the world was doing it to me and that the world owes me some thing…When you're a teeny bopper, that's what you think. I'm 40 now, I don't think that anymore, because I found out it doesn't f--king work. One has to go through that. For the people who even bother to go through that, most assholes just accept what it is anyway and get on with it." - John Lennon
