Iraq has turned into a military and political quagmire and has become an incurable disorder in the eyes of the world. The struggle has assumed an ominous pattern, bouts of tension as the US threatens invasion. It is my belief that the US will take whatever steps are necessary and they will continue to move towards armed conflict. At best it will be turbulent, violent and de-stabilising.

War condemns everyone who fights, win or lose and it leaves behind all the wrong things, pain, dissatisfaction and revenge. How retarded we have become if we are unable to solve problems except by conflict. It allows men to go about their business of killing and being killed. Why should people be allowed to kill each other first? Is that how it must always be? It may allow a new Regime to be put in place but at what cost?

War of any nature, no matter how brief or however small has become the ultimate horror. It has become the truth of the all too familiar human condition. It is an expression of all the tensions and confusions and passions provoked by history and man himself. Man has little to be proud of. Is this all we can offer one another? Danger and evil is faced by so many. You don't have to see them or experience them to know that they are there. Perhaps we ourselves are the greatest tragedy of all. It is a desperate relentless battle for so many for survival. The world is a slaughter house. We've become detached from the commandments, detached from morality it's not easy to find goodness in this world. What we have in abundance is hate, discord and horror. I guess we have ethics of a sort, just as we have human souls of a sort.

Surely, there must be an easier way than war? Why does it have to cost so many innocent lives? I've come to understand that there are something's in which you can't help; men bring their destiny upon themselves. Everyone knows about the tyranny of the powerful, but there is something worse. It is worse when you cannot understand it. You feel too guilty to fight it and you cannot define it until it has taken what it wants from you. It is the tyranny of the suffering. William Blake wrote in his poem the 'Divine Image' that "Cruelty has a Human Heart, And Jealousy a Human Face, Terror, the Human Form Divine and Secrecy, the Human Dress." How truly he understood mankind.

There is no doubt in my mind that war will only lead to further tension and weapons proliferation throughout the Middle East which will lead to further conflict within the region.