War is very expensive. It costs a lot of human life - human beings each of whom were created by God as unique individuals and for whom, God has a plan.  If these human beings die, that Plan may never be completed because that's how God designed things - that is for us to have an important part in His Work in our world.

In war, we send a young healthy man with his life ahead of him into a foreign country and then we ask him to murder or help murder many human beings who are also children of God and whose only crime is being a part of a country which our leaders have decided is our "enemy".

How many mothers ask their sons this question: "What will you do when a human brother is standing before you and your leaders ask you to murder him in cold blood?"

So even those young men who return from the war have been forced into committing what many feel is the ultimate sin, the destruction of human life.  Can they ever be the same?

Let's look at some history.  After World War II, we suddenly saw a strange thing happen in many towns. Gangs of motorcyclists, wearing "colors", raped and killed for pleasure.  In analyzing how these clubs like Hell's Angels came to be, historians found that most of them were returning soldiers from WW II who could not adjust to civilian life.  Our government had created "killing machines" out of them and they could not revert.

This is only a small example.  For instance, teenage gangs do "drive-by shootings" of innocent victims at random, freeway shootings and more.  How can we tell them this is wrong when WE are killing innocent people at random, in foreign countries?  Remember they learned it all from us!

Has war EVER worked?  If we study history again, we find that all wars ended accomplishing very little other than destroying countries and destroying human life - in the case of those who survived the war as well as those who died.

The end of WW II gave the Communists free reign to enslave most of Europe, ruined the environment of Japan for decades to come, destroyed Germany. Hitler committed suicide - there is good evidence that he was quite ill with Parkinson's and his soldiers were having major problems in Russia - did we REALLY "save" anyone or would God have stepped in anyway?  During WW II, as recently released government documents show, President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt ( FDR, a Democrat) and his staff orchestrated a 7 point plan to anger the Japanese so they would attack us on Pearl Harbor.  This was because they knew if we were attacked, that Americans would gut react and want to go to war.  FDR sacrificed 1400 of OUR soldiers (stationed at Pearl Harbor) because despite knowing exactly WHEN Pearl Harbor would be attacked (they were tracking the approaching Japanese war ships by radar!), he did NOT allow our soldiers to be evacuated for fear that the 7 point plan would be revealed.  1400 young men, wantonly murdered when this could have been prevented. [1]

In Vietnam when we pulled our soldiers out, South Vietnam ceased to exist and 4.5 million people were murdered - whole towns were decimated. This was during the term of a Republican president, Richard Nixon.  But Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson's policy in Vietnam was "bombing the heck out of them". [2]

Regardless of what anyone may say during a presidential campaign, our affinity for war, our feeling that murdering human beings will somehow, solve a problem runs far deeper than party affiliations!

What happened to Vietnam veterans?  For one, the "agent orange" used to destroy plant life in Vietnam has caused many vets to become ill years later with various types of cancer.  We are not even dealing with the psychological damage so many Vietnam vets suffered. [3]

When the World Trade Center was attacked by three hijacked planes (what we now call "911"), Americans responded with their usual gut reaction - "let's kill the b-stards!"  Regardless of the fact that John Kerry and other Democrats are now "against the war", the Congressional record (which IS on line) shows that Kerry and the rest ALL VOTED IN FAVOR of the war against Iraq.

And so again, many young men have been killed and wounded, many Iraq citizens have been killed and wounded and like all the other wars we have fought, we really have done nothing with this war except giving Americans a feel-good after "911"

What I taught my son was this "It is more honor to go to jail than to be faced with a brother standing in front of you, a human being whom some government says is "enemy" and your being forced to murder this human being in cold blood.  This man standing before you is just like you, some mother's son, some woman's husband, perhaps some kids' father and most of all, he is beloved of God.  To be asked to murder even one person like this, will mar you for life.  Prison is far preferable to this ( the position of conscientious objection)."

It's really time for the killing to stop. War has not worked in 2000 years or more. 

"Doing something repeatedly and expecting a different result is insanity!"  (Albert Einstein)

References:

1. Stinett, Robert: DAY OF DECEIT (NY, 1999)
2. Berman, Larry: NO PEACE, NO HONOR (NY, 2001)
3. I personally know several Vietnam vets whose virulent cancer was directly attributed to their encountering agent orange (many Vietnam vets I have met are psychologically damaged and suffering post traumatic stress syndrome, even 37 years after the war ended)