As the latest round of insanity continued to unfold in Lebanon, I took an evening out to watch the movie Platoon. I find myself periodically turning to this defining movie of the Vietnam War as a means of ensuring I never forget the horrors of war. For the second greatest tragedy that could befall us would be for us to forget – Vietnam, The Holocaust, Korea, 9/11, to name a few.

But the greatest tragedy is that visited upon the most innocent of victims of our own inhumanity – The Children. In hospitals in both Israel and Lebanon, Children, whose only fault was to be born in a time and place that has made them targets of grownups who only seem to be capable of doling out violence, lie in painful suffering. One cannot help but ask, “Why?”

The answer simply cannot be that war has unfortunate consequences. Nor can these innocents be hidden under the blanket of “collateral damage” woven by the military complex. The pain and suffering or the death of a single child cannot be justified by political doublespeak espousing the rightness of any cause.

The simple fact is that harming and killing children is wrong – no ifs, ands or buts about it. It was wrong when the Germans did it; it was wrong when we did it in Vietnam; it was wrong when the first child died in Iraq; and it will always be wrong. And unless we do everything in our power to bring the killing to an end, we are just as guilty as the person who presses the “fire” button on the rocket that maims and kills the Innocents.

No, I do not believe the United States can correct the world situation by ourselves. But I also believe we have totally missed the golden opportunity we have had for the past quarter century to be a true world leader and try to lead the world out of this mess.

Hey, has anyone noticed that we are the only Superpower left? Since our ancestors first stood upright, the biggest guy on the block has usually been the leader. So where has our leadership taken us? Into the quagmire that is Iraq, with no strategy for aiding and abetting peace in the region. Would anyone have thought it might have been a good idea for the US Secretary of State to be in the Middle East speaking with leaders encouraging peace before the recent eruption? It seems to me that proactively propagating peace would be far easier, probably cheaper and definitely more sensible than waiting until the rockets have started flying.

And then, perhaps, the children would not have to suffer