Killing people

I am fascinated by the shouting going on over drones and gas.

Drones are OK because we are flying them and we are killing bad guys with them.

Gas is not OK because Assad may be using it to kill the rebels.

Ordinary people are not allowed to kill other people. Governments are allowed to kill people.

To explain this conundrum to us, governments and the media talk of honour, duty and our boys when talking about the people they train to do the actual killing and evil, barbaric and terrorist when talking about the people they send our boys to kill.

When we come up with better killing technology, drones for example, that is giving our boys the equipment they need.

When the bad guys come up with better ways of killing: gas in Iraq and Syria, nuclear weapons in North Korea and Iran, backpack bombs and crashing planes from the fundamentalists, we cry foul and run to the United Nations.

If you believe that killing people is an acceptable way of solving problems, don’t be surprised if your opponent takes the same view. How either of you does the killing is irrelevant.

We are good guys and whatever we do is honourable. They are bad guys and whatever they do is evil. We have been told this by our betters since the days of the crusades.

I am astonished we have not found more civilised ways of solving our disputes in all that time.

I am equally astonished that we, the public, still buy this nonsense.