I’ll keep this brief. Shortly after the July, 2005 London bombings, U2 performed in Milan and dedicated the song Miss Sarajevo to its victims. Bono prefaced the song with these words:
“We’d like to dedicate this next song to those who lost their lives in London last week and who are maimed and injured today. And we would like to turn our song into a prayer. The prayer is that we don’t become a monster in order to defeat a monster. That’s our prayer tonight.”
The song has been one of my favorites for a long time (see here). Lately, I’ve been thinking of this particular version because it’s a reminder to try not to lose our humanity while pursuing justice and standing up to great wrongs.
Patrick F. Clarkin, Ph.D. 
Many and sharp the num’rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav’n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,—
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Burns, 1784
The sun’s shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that’s still No Man’s Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man’s blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
-Eric Bogle
Peace, Robert
‘All we are saying is give peace a chance.’ — That was a very dangerous thing for Lennon to say. Guns certainly speak louder than words. But before guns we burnt people at the stake or hanged them in public. And people cheered. Is Man inherently violent? I don’t feel I am. But Adolf loved children and animals and was faithful to his partner, so how do we judge violence?