Stop creating wars

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been costly in both money and lives. Only the figures for British and American casualties have been mentioned; the real number is higher. The replacement of Trident is predicted to cost £100 billion, enough to end the most extreme forms of poverty in the whole world. Usually the reason that enemies fight us is in revenge, because we are fighting them. The quickest way for us to end a war is to put down our weapons, treat our enemies as humans. Then they will realise that we are human and at least some of them will agree to make peace. Many wars could have been prevented from happening in the first instance by distributing wealth more fairly and not stereotyping people. Stockpiling weapons only increases the chance of a war happening. The only advantage of war is as a population control, but banning IVF and making contraceptives more easily available in the rest of the world are much more acceptable ways of controlling the population than murder.

I want all troops withdrawn immediately, all weapons decommissioned (is it possible to convert nuclear weapons into a source of nuclear power?) and the money saved spent on international aid. The army can continue to do rescue work but must be unarmed, since weapons are so often abused that it is too big a risk to possess them. There are some areas of land owned by the military which could be kept as nature reserves, because although mines and tanks have damaged some wildlife at least they have prevented the land from being developed on. The rest of the land could be sold. Also, we should not export any weapons.

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