1.Practice your principles. Be it thou shalt not kill or first, do no harm, do not abandon your convictions.
2.War breaks reason's promise. Reason is neither pedigree nor algorithm. Reason is using language to make and keep peace.
3.War is a set of verbs. The concept of war is shrouded in sentiment. To see through this shroud, one must think concretely. War is a finite set of concentrated human actions, and a near-infinite set of consequences. The actions are command, destroy, and support. Those with power command their servants to destroy people and infrastructure; a massive network supports these actions by providing weapons, vehicles, food, medicine, paperwork, etc. The traumatic consequences of war are practically innumerable.
4.Power is always uneven. War is never a fair fight. One group will always have more power than others. This distribution does not signify moral or legal superiority. The more power a group has, the more violence they can perpetrate.
5.War is lucrative. The soldier Smedley Butler shows this in his book War Is a Racket. War enriches corporations and governments while poor and working class people die.
6.War is no sport. Despite propaganda and childish emotions, war is not a game. Its supposed rules—international law—are regularly ignored. War cannot be boiled down to a conflict between good and evil.
7.The powerful use war as a tool. Those whose lives are never at risk use war to fill their coffers and better their prospects. War is a method of gaining and keeping power. Those capable of using this method are heads of state, the rich, and their advisors.
8.Belief is war's engine. Soldiers need stories to endure stress and trauma. Bosses need stories to justify their commands. The rich need stories to invest in death. Some of these stories align with reality while others are pure fiction. Without belief, war would cease.
9.Evidence obstructs war. One photograph of a murdered child proves war's evil. Visual and aural evidence of war causes rational people to want and work for peace. Powerful people know this, so hide or destroy evidence accordingly.
10. The only sane response to war is to make peace. War stops when soldiers stop destroying. This might result from bosses commanding ceasefire, industries cutting off their support, or soldiers losing their beliefs. Making peace begins with stopping violence, and continues with mutual aid, rebuilding, shared hopes, and forgiveness.
