thanks for this ua; all the incessant warmongering worldwide makes me think that people (like me) who are interested in peace and anti-war are in a minority of around 3 or 4;

i think i'm cynical (and feel yes maybe war has always existed) - the news / cartoon scrapbook my dad helped me make at age 7 had a cartoon in it (with a pretty good prediction for 1981 even though they got the invading nation wrong) - a tank with a soviet flag on it ploughing merrily across the borders of several countries.. collecting flags from afghanistan, pakistan, iran, saudi and so on) ; as my parents point out whenever a middle eastern or similar nation is bombed 'the last such expedition got the uk and us engineering firms $12 billion in rebuilding contracts the other day covering the next x years' or several nicely positioned gulf army bases - our army has to eat and practice and people in the us need cheap oil.. apparently messing up other countries is the best method of achieiving all this according to politicians

i went to a fundraiser for lebanon earlier this year and bought a book of photos from journalists/ art from lebanese artists recording the atrocities - it's stomach churning stuff; the photos and captions exhibited at the venue were stark reminders about how cheap muslim blood is; the music / songs played at the fundraiser evoked nothing but a sense of despair.. the palestinian singer singing about his beloved country.. while everyone in the audience tried to imagine the state his country was in now..

the arab people in audience talking about how none of this made them sad anymore, just very angry..

the stats in this article make me angry www.guardian.co.uk

maybe muslims & others worldwide need to unite for more than the cultural and social activities that nite us and become an effective voice & a mechanism to do something about 'the breadth of anger at the British government's position on the war in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian question and the conflict in Lebanon * ' , which we acknowledge but are indolently indifferent about ..

to answer the questions - Is peace sustainable?
It has been seen to be in the past, and it must be, or made to be if nations and cultures and humanity itself are to survive; people who suggest for instance that pakistan would have been better off reaining part of india are missing the point of the long term conflict and subjugation this would have created for the muslims who were able to secede

Or sometimes is war the only solution?
only when you're being bullied to the point where you must defend yourself/ your neighbours but only if other methods fail (which is also the islamic teaching) - not for oil as we do

Is peace utopia or is it something we just talk about? / Why can't we have more peace in the world? I don't think it's a utopia, it just takes 2nd place to war because war is big business

* the muslim anger bit is from observer.guardian.co.uk

This is still available online if you're interested in listening:
www.bbc.co.uk