I was raised in a family (and religion) that generally believed that killing was a very bad idea. In fact, traditionally, members of the religion refused to bear or use weapons in wartime and instead became medics, sometimes even becoming decorated for their efforts to save rather than take lives.

But my real commitment to a generally antiwar stance came with the Iraq war of aggression, that we excused as a hunt for weapons of mass destruction. For me that was the turning point. Even though it had started years earlier when I learned the other side of the story in Palestine, the real sense of our position as an immoral imperialist aggressor was solidified by the Iraq war.

Here are some excellent articles that have strengthened my resolve:

And just to be very clear, none of my resolve is mollified by the knowledge that there are very bad people on the other side; Sadam and his family were indeed demons and the hatred underlying Palestinian violence is unadulterated evil. Their evil does not change our responsibility to act morally, to reject "the end justifies the means" -- that anything is OK to do if our opponent is evil enough. But in fact, we have gone beyond this evil principle in recent years to naked aggression, to violent radicalization of our enemies through our unapologetic arrogance and our willingness to openly flaunt the moral high ground that we claimed was our vantage point.

Our evil no longer seeks darkness for cover. To me, that was a most disturbing and revealing development. That is why we must not let our leaders think, by our silence, by any kind of participation, that it is OK with us, that we support this evil.