Knockin on Heaven's Door

In my attempt to learn the guitar like the likes of Jack Johnson, I tried to learn and play the song "Knockin on Heaven's Door". The chords are rather simple and the rhytm easy to grasp. No, I'm not talking about your Guns N' Roses' version, but of Bob Dylan's original song from 1973.

While growing up, I never paid attention to the lyrics of the song. Little did I know, until recently, that the song's theme was about war. It is about soldiers, unwilling to go with the killing of innocent people, and hoping to avoid opening heaven's door prematurely.

People have often asked me, how in the world did the Khmer Rouge killed over 1.8 million of its own people? They say to me, Cambodians seem so friendly and kind. During the Holocaust they say, the Germans took the lives of 6 million Jews. Over 10 years ago in Rwanda, about 800 000 were killed in 100 days. The genocide in Rwanda involved the Hutsi doing an ethnic cleansing of the Hutu. People of different origins.

To be honest, I have no answer to that question. Really, how can anyone justify any genocide?