The Warrior
The Warrior
I am the king, the commander in chief.
He was a general of the army,
a man of the nation,
born of the nation,
protector of the nation,
protector of the people,
and of their land.
I summon the general,
and I tell him to go and kill the enemy.
And he goes,
and he kills,
he goes into their land
and he kills.
And then the enemy sends generals to our land,
and they kill.
They kill us.
I send for the general,
and his generals,
and they come and the general says to me,
"Your Majesty, we kill the enemy
and our enemy kills their enemy,
us,
and we are at war.
We kill them, they kill us,
we are at war."
And so I consider this war
and I ask the generals what it will take to win the war,
and the generals talk to me.
"We must kill many more of the enemy."
"We must destroy his food supply."
"We must make him want to end the war."
"We must degrade his weapons and stockpiles."
"We must have more and better spies than him."
"We must kill more of the enemy. We are not killing enough."
And one general says to me:
"My colleagues give good counsel.
But,
Your Majesty,
We cannot win this war.
No one can win this war.
Most wars are neither won nor lost;
Most wars are just stopped.
They kill, we kill, and then we all stop killing.
The war stops.
We do not win the war, we end the war.
When I say We,
Your Majesty,
that includes the enemy."
This general had my attention.
I wanted to hear more from him.
"What would you propose that we do to end this war?"
"Commander, Your Majesty,
you begin by heeding the counsel of my fellow generals.
You even heighten our effort,
as we move into this last phase of this war.
But we must know that the enemy will do the same.
As we continue to destroy and kill,
and be destroyed and killed,
by our enemy,
we will send word,
through our back channels,
that we can see,
in the distance,
an end to this war,
that there is no longer a need to kill and destroy.
Your Majesty,
we will tell our enemy,
through our back channels,
that perhaps soon our people can intermingle, and intermarry,
and trade goods,
and maybe,
maybe,
friendships destroyed by this war can be renewed,
and our descendants can live in peace,
without having to bear the memory of these horrors.
That is the message that you should send to our enemy.
But,
Your Majesty,
there is one principle,
one,
that I would humbly urge the king, Your Majesty, to consider,
and it is this:
It is easier to be enemies,
than it is to be friends.
The king must count the cost of friendship,
Your Majesty."
And so I listened to this subordinate general,
and I added him to my staff to counsel me.
Because of him
I can see an end to this war.