As has been previously stated, there are two words meaning "kill" in Greek, the original language of the Gospels. One of them means "to kill," in the sense of justified death, as in the death penalty or a just war. The other means "to murder." Jesus uses the first word every time he quotes from the Sixth Commandment or talks about it.

When Jesus met the Roman centurion (our sergeant-major), he never suggested that he leave the army. When the soldiers spoke with John the Baptist, he didn't tell them that soldiering was wrong, either.

The main point of Christianity is that you should love your neighbor as yourself; Jesus even says this is the most important part of the Law, next to "Love the Lord your God." This does not mean condoning your enemy's actions, for God does not want us to reduce at all our hatred of evil things. It also does not mean that the man should not be punished, or even killed. However, you should act against the sins, not the sinner. The man sentenced to death should be killed not out of hatred, but out of a sincere desire to remove evil from the world. In the same way, a war should not be fought out of anger or revenge, but out of a wish to see evils stopped.

And that is one thing that I can say for the United States. Despite the mismanagement of the current war, our country has a history of fighting for just causes. We have a national conscience and, occasionally, we listen to it.

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Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

- Percy Shelley, "The Masque of Anarchy"