An Eye for an Eye in the World and at Home

Last night I watched the movie "Battle of Haditha" which if you are feeling particularly disgruntled with war you shouldn´t watch. What I picked up from the film was: the extreme difficulty in making right and wrong decisions in wartime and an eye for an eye is questionable justice. Background: The U.S. is in Iraq, trying to restore order and peace and prevent more deaths. There are Iraqi´s that are indifferent to the American´s, this is a time to be lived through. Then of course you have radical Islamic factions that have made in-roads and will destroy all American´s. How could any person, Iraqi or American, survive amidst all that hatred?

Very Quick Snyopsis:
The Iraqi patriot in the film plants an IAD to blow up a convoy of American soldiers, he succeeds in destroying one. What happens after that is of course disasterous, we´ve all read about what happened. Marines went in looking for insurgents and were told to eliminate possible rebels in two particular houses. In those houses there happened to be women, children and old men, and the story has it none of them were rebels but will we ever know the facts? In a country where to die for your religion at the hands of American´s will win you paradise, could we get a straight story? The outcome for the Iraqi patriot is tragic because he finds that in following what he thinks is right (but is reactionary only) his actions kill more of his innocent countrymen and women, than the evil American´s and he will have to live with those images of death by his actions. He never thought of the consequences beyond blowing up the convoy

This brings me to a point I was pondering yesterday. My children have this sense of an eye for an eye as justice. Because someone has done "X" to you, you in turn do "X" to them, you know! My observation, as a mother, is that people/groups cannot function with this brand of justice, this mama can´t anyway. The gratification of one punch should be easy to weigh against the consequences afterward. However, if Roarke walks up and hits Isabel (which he is want to do), what should he expect in return? Do you really think the other person isn´t going to turn around a deliver a punch? Because I think if a person is assaulted they will fight to come out on top. Yet continually I steer my children away from causing conflict, try to work peace out. But I am getting really fed up with Roarke and his three year old ways that are like a bushfire out of control.

To make Isabel and Sebastian turn the other cheek continually to Roarke´s aggressions seems unfair. To get my 3 year old to not behave like a brute is becoming increasingly difficult. With all my moral, ethical and value pondering lately, I find I come up short. Really short, because I am ready to say, to Isabel especially, come out of the corner fighting and wallop Roarke, maybe he´ll remember that and back off. But as in the film that doesn´t happen. The fight leads to a larger disaster, grand consequences, more offenses and then my family will stop fuctioning. I am trying to walk the path of peace with my children, but it is super slippery and today I cannot get proper footing.