Respectability 2

When USA and other countries invaded Iraq 2003, one idea was to make Iraq democratic. It should be a model or showcase and start a domino process in the Muslim world, making state after state more democratic.
This has not happened, but if a model or showcase of democratic Islam is sought, the answer is Indonesia. It is the worlds largest Muslim state with some 240 million inhabitants on some 17 500 islands.
Indonesia has not been without conflicts, but the situation is much more orderly than in the assumed showcase, Iraq.
In Indonesia we can see how violence has lost all respectability, and the few terrorist attacks are condemned by the population. The contrast to Iraq could not be more obvious.
In Indonesia is the sensitivity for foreign involvement and colonialist tendencies quite vivid.

Bridge the gap 2

OK, violence is a symptom of an illness. The illness is frustration. Frustration can be cured. How? Frustration appears when our image of reality and of the ways reality works are contradicted.
Why would this happen?
The main cause is in our own mind. We have a faulty idea about reality. We do not see reality as it is, but as our brain makes us see it. There are four basic faults:
The reality we see is experienced as lasting, while it is under constant change. We believe we will get pleasure from things giving pain. We see things as clean while they are unclean. We see phenomena as having intrinsic value, while they have no identity of their own.
These faults can be solved, and for many they are solved by time.
This is one side of the problem. Another side is other people. Their behavior often gives rise to frustration.
This can be caused by ignorance. Some individuals do not consider the importance of frustration, and thus act negligently.
If we see frustration is the root of violence, we might take it seriously and try to avoid it in a systematic, rational way.

From violence to wisdom 2

The amount of knowledge of all kinds is bigger than ever before, and presumably so also in the military field. So it should be possible to get information beforehand about all effects and consequences of any planned future war.
The experiences from Iraq, Afghanistan and the last Israeli wars (against Hezbollah and Gaza) could be used as reference for a computer calculation of number of deaths and wounded, number of destroyed houses, roads, bridges, industrial installments, schools, hospitals, museums, killed animals and also the value of lost time for so many thousands or millions of people, dragged into the war itself or being unable to study and work because of the conflict.
Also the effects on international opinion, trade and trust could also be calculated. And thare are many other aspects which also could be calculated.
Everything could be given a price in the main world currencies, and thus the full price of the conflict could be known before the first provocation took place.
To use knowledge in this way would be an act of wisdom.
The result would probably be that war was abandoned and replaced by negotiations.