Evil
One of the things that regularly comes up in conversations about the US acting against other countries in situations like what is currently going on in Ukraine goes along the lines of: We have done a lot of bad things too. Our hands aren’t clean.
Does it matter if our hands are clean? The reality is that if you look around hard enough and are critical enough, there are VERY few clean hands. \
The great horror of evil is its banality. It is not some ugly monster doing things for cosmic reasons in an eternal struggle of good and evil. That is the stuff of movies and novels. Evil usually breaks down into people doing horrible things for selfish or thoughtless reasons--sometimes without REALLY being aware of the evil that they are about to do.
There are times when you are presented with a clear choice--and you have enough distance from the the thing to see what is right and what is wrong--with a clarity that is all too rare these days. Despite the evil that you or your country (or whatever) has done, is it not incumbent upon you, as a (good) person, to combat that evil? Can you not, through this, somehow earn yourself (if such a thing can be earned) some forgiveness for the evil that you have done--be it by omission or commission?
Or do you simply bow to the evil.. and so partake of it?
While we often cannot control what happens around us.. cannot, in and of ourselves overcome or forestall evil, cannot in a sense be held responsible (except perhaps in our own hearts)--what we CAN control is how we respond to evil to safeguard our own souls, our own integrity, our own hopes.
And if enough people do this, can we not overcome it?