Unintended Consequences

Currently we are seeing past leaders such as Tony Blair put to the fire for the outcomes of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Now, I have written many times in various words that peace takes a great deal of projected thought. Often we act within moments of blind knowledge. Those acts bring us unknown reverberations. For those that seek lasting and real peace, they understand the impact of acting with blind knowledge or seeing unintended consequences. In such situations we often hear the phrase – “had I known at the time this would have been the outcome, I would have done something else”. It is within this phrase that the need to understand the reality of unintended consequences is paramount, especially within the context of war. However, there are some that will say that we have no clue what an unintended consequence can be. Yet, when we are dealing with peace we have a great understanding of what will transpire. What we have little knowledge of is the impact of war. Even though we have been engaging in war for thousands of years we have a wide knowledge base of how to get into war and manage war. Sadly we lack proficient skills with finishing or avoiding war at the global leadership level. One great example of unintended consequences is Alfred Noble and dynamite. He immediately witnessed the unintended uses of dynamite as a terrorist tool to kill others. Other areas of concern deals with technology. An example is the wide use of internet and global internet security. On one side, the use of the internet is great for sharing ideas and information widely and instantly. On another side we have not seeing as much theft of information. We are all experimenting with life and there are some things that we just can not know unless we take action. From a peace perspective we know that we can understand a great deal more of what will transpire than if we acted with non-peaceful mind.