War

My younger child asked
"Is this the start of WWIII?"
She had just been studying about Hitler, disarmment, the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations
"Wow it's like seeing history happen right in front of our eyes," she said as the car radio droned out BBC News
The Ayatollah is 
dead
Murdered by US soldiers

It is a confusing time
Initial gut reactions of shock and horror
at unprovoked aggression
Murder of a Head of State
An escalation from the midnight abduction 
of the Venezualan President

Yet
there were Iranians celebrating from rooftops and balconies
And one remembers that indeed
the regime was brutal
Especially to innocent women

Is this what it takes
Once again as with Venezuela
does the end ever justify
the means

Especially when the means
Means death and destruction
to soldiers, civilians, innocent people going about their daily lives
collateral damage
all humans made in the image of God
Oblierated in a flash
or if fortunate (?) maimed to suffer

They call themselves the Islamic State but
This is not the Islam my Muslim friends practice
Militant Islam, it is branded
But when religion becomes militant, is it religion?
Why should anyone be an adherent?

The arrogant self-belief of so-called elected leaders
Endowed with military might
So sure they are right
But who will ultimately be held responsible
By their Maker
For the order to kill
to bomb and to devastate

Not the first genocide ordered by a race that once suffered 
the same
Cruel irony
Pure cruelty
Inflicting untold human suffering
Forcing families to flee homes
Into hostile wilderness
A systemic disenfranchising
For all that and more
There will be Judgement

No matter how invincible a human's self-perception
He is merely one heart attack
one brain aneurysm away
from meeting his Creator

And being called to account
for all his words and works
for every death he ordered
or occured as fallout

In this ultimate Justice we trust
Whilst man in his foolishness maims and destroys

Grasshoppers who think  
they are gods