Violence... The story so far

Gandhi and Mandela achieved great things via this route and we admire what they did and for what they are or were as people. Their procedures worked because their adversaries were civilized to a large degree.
In counterpoint, pacifists cannotand in any event did notstop Adolf Hitler when his Panzers began rolling. At that time there was only one viable option; to wage war until, as Winston Churchill put it, "they have had enough of it." Nor could pacifists stop the Cambodian, Bosnian or Rwandan genocides.

Pacifist organizations may fall into the trap of allowing themselves to be used by an aggressive dictatorship which disguises itself as peace loving. The German American Bund (a Nazi shill) encouraged pacifism and isolationism in the United States in a partially successful attempt to delay the US entry into WW II.

Nevertheless, we applaud the Buddhist monks in Vietnam who sheltered and cared for people on all sides. Many of those monks were killed in the process. What they accomplished was by example. It is possible for humanity to be compassionate of other people in spite of social or economic differences.

This living proof these Buddihist monks offered, provides hope that there can be something very right in the human genome--given the right nurturing.