In The Failure of War from YES! Magazine Wendell Berry writes about the condradictions inherant in waging war for the sake of peace. While I am less comfortable with his denunciation of abortion along with war, capital punishment, and other forms of violence, he presents a good argument for the absurdity of our policies of pursuing peace by means of violence.

I am reminded by this article of the statement which I have seen attributed to Albert Einstein that you cannot simultaneously prepare for peace and war. Also of the line from the song by Holly Near: "Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?"

I am again grateful to Dale for pointing me to this link.