A Deterrent of Peace

Please read with an open mind.

There are many reasons that peace cannot prevail among different groups and people of different ethnicities. However, there is usually one reason for why this is; the closed-mindedness of people. In most cases, severely opposing viewpoints can lead to armed conflict. This is evident in the civil war in Libya. On one side are the rebels who are fed up with how the government is run, and on the other side is the government and their refusal to change.

With so many different views in the world, it is understandable that two different views are going to clash eventually. However, things can get bad when either party is closed minded or are too stubborn to acknowledge that there are views other than their own. Many wars have been fought merely for the fact of one party not agreeing with the views of another or one party trying to force its views on the other through force. Such methods are incredibly destructive, and in the long run, only grow spite and hate directed to the victors of the “idea war.” These “idea wars” can be long and usually don’t accomplish anything but death; as long as there are people with one point of view and there are people who strongly disagree (and are closed minded) with the others point of view, there will be aggression between the two peoples, and how far that aggression goes depends on how each party is willing to cling on and defend their beliefs.

My main point for this writing, this is evident in the conflicts in the Middle East. While organizations, such as al-Qaeda, are destructive and hard to comprehend by our logic, they have their reasons nonetheless. And with that attribute there, they can be negotiated with. The main problem with that is that the U.S. and al-Qaeda are bent on each others destruction. And as cliché as it sounds, there has to come a time were we must have a time to negotiate some sort of truce, otherwise our future will be filled with violent back and forths, one retaliatory action after another.

It may sound unorthodox; too much blood has been spilt and we do not negotiate with terrorists. But being open minded sometimes means being unorthodox. For this enemy we face is more dangerous than any army; we face an idea and an ideology. And with an enemy such as that, 10 years of diplomacy may get us further than 10 years of armed conflict.