To questions 1 and 3, those who oppose war are patriots, the men and women of character who choose to follow the more difficult path.

As to question #2, karma is what one gets when one is still in denial about who is responsible for one's condition. The past is dead. It should be forgiven, but not forgotten. If you seek to punish, then you continue the cycle. Break the cycle. End the desire to punish. Forgive your enemies. Phrase it any way you like, just do it. You have nothing to lose but your attachment to the cycle of violence.

That does not, however, mean that the same people who committed war crimes should be allowed to continue to commit war crimes. The individuals directly responsible for war -- the real war criminals -- must be stripped of power. This is not done to punish them! It is done to protect the rest of us. These individuals could not find sufficient reverence for human life to stop themselves from committing, or ordering to be committed, these atrocities. To trust them any further is to deserve further atrocities. We do not deserve further atrocities, so let's not trust them any further, either. Remove them from power. This also means stripping them of finance! Money is such a wonderful tool for manipulating populations. They must not be permitted to hold that power, so they must not be permitted to have access to the money they use to manipulate, bribe, or "contribute to the campaigns of" opinion leaders and elected officials.

There is one way, and one way only, to make a wrong action a right action, and that way is to learn from the wrong action. If you can accomplish that small feat, then punishment serves no purpose. The problem with the supporters of the ruling class in America is that they are poor students of history, and so they learn nothing from the wealth of past actions already performed. Since they don't have this historical information to review, they cannot see the pattern that emerges from it, and neither can they predict where the pattern is heading. And, given that no one wants to believe that his side is wrong, historically ignorant Americans simply accept that their side is right, and they actively seek to ignore any data which challenges that assumed rightness.

It's a very effective self-imposed mental and spiritual trap. This same trap echoes throughout all facets of the lives of the current US regime's supporters.

It would be comedic if there weren't so much suffering involved. It would be tragic if someone else could be blamed for it.

=-John-=