War is murder. And the brutal atrocities of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine have brought this reality into our living rooms once again. As the war raged on in that country the headlines of the slaughter started to recede into the background. Sports, regional politics, economics and even the environment started to share the spotlight. That changed again this weekend as images of the carnage emerged.

It’s the kind of immediate, satellite verified, graphic account of the atrocities of this war that Putin probably didn’t figure into his hundred year old battle strategy. Nor did he anticipate that a worldwide network of hackers would seize and release personal information of 120,000 Russian soldiers to help the world identify the perpetrators and hold them individually accountable.

War is murder. It is always justified but it is always murder. Now, Putin’s aggression is teaching a whole new generation to hate. It’s a level of destruction not seen in Europe since the second world war, 80 years ago. And it won’t be soon forgotten. When the people killed look like your neighbours it hits closer to home. But of course the brutality of war is nothing new. It’s repeated over and over again.

When Colin Powell was ordered by the Bush administration to falsely proclaim in front of the UN that Iraq harbored weapons of mass destruction it was accepted by many as confirmation that the “Shock and Awe” of invading Iraq was the right thing to do. Except for the illusion of engagement aka keeping up with the news, most of us went on with our daily lives. The death toll of Bush’s war is estimated at between 100,000 and 200,000 souls.

In Vietnam we perceived the threat to our way of life as real and imminent even though the war raged halfway around the world. We rained napalm and agent orange on the people of Vietnam for decades. A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths.

The Rwandan genocide claimed over half a million lives during 100 days of slaughter. And right now Human Rights Watch reports brutal ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia.

None of this is meant to justify the brutal atrocities of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but there are countless examples of mass violence justified by those who perpetrate them. If we are ever to end this senseless slaughter we need to evolve our civilization beyond the pounding of chests and raising of fists while we cry: “us Good – them Bad”. 

As long as we point the finger at someone else we can feel smug in our world. We go to work, attend weddings, celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, take vacations to relax, and plan family dinners. But as soon as there is any indication that responsibility rests with us, cognitive dissonance sets in and we reach for the tools of confirmation bias, value alignment and conformity bias to calm our discomfort.

When germs were first identified as causing disease, doctors famously refused to wash their hands between examining a corpse and attending to a woman in labor even though the mortality rate among women attended to by doctors was twice that of women attended to by midwives. The doctors simply could not allow themselves to believe that they were the reason for all those women dying.

Tyrants and despots have taken advantage of this human coping mechanism throughout the ages. Now, in an age of fear and anxiety, whipping up the masses by laying blame at the feet of others remains a powerful weapon of mass manipulation. From Trump, to Putin to Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, feeding the frenzy of “us versus them” still has real consequences.

It does not have to be that way.

Change starts at home. Change starts with us. We can imagine and work towards a world where we know in our hearts that we are all one. A world where we solve the challenges of our time, including war and climate catastrophe, together. A world where we build bridges across the divides of language, race, ideology, religion, nationalism. A world where every living thing can be free to experience this amazing planet, to thrive, to love, to feel like they belong, to feel safe.

Or we can continue to fortify a world of “us versus them”…

Where the children keep dying…