Interest in war

Arse walrus --an *** is what Jesus used as transport.

 

There is a lot of fussing and fighting going on today, and it all seems to be based on who has the better Imaginary Friend.

 

Totally Frosty, totally! Both full of extremely smelly 5H1T tho'!

 

RHP, In a certain sense your premise is correct, that we probably spend too much time worrying about deeper root causes for conflicts rather than focusing on the 'here and now' solutions to them.

I suppose its a lot like the trend in psychiatry, which is increasingly moving away from full psychoanalysis and toward the immediacy of techniques like cognitive therapies. I mean does one really need to know exactly why you have a certain phobia or obsession or character flaw? Wouldn't it be better to get an immediate result from forming a new habit deliberately? Then if you choose, you can go back a spend 5 or 10 years on a couch and figure out just exactly where mom and dad went wrong with you

But history differs in that it does tend to be cyclic, and newer generations quickly forget lessons learned by previous ones. So an approach which ignores the deeper root causes will probably be less successful than one that at least takes mind of them. In human affairs it is useful to understand just how we have arrived at this point, wherever that is.

Jimbo

 

That cliche about if you don't know history you're doomed to repeat it seems pretty hollow. Previous generations from WWII on populate our congress and govt., but that didn't stop them from making one of the dumbest f***ing moves in history by getting into Iraq. After all these millenia, we have not only not learned the downside of war itself, even with unlimited resources, we can't even conduct one successfully.

It would seem a successfull 'here and now' approach might not focus on any physical, historical causes of any individual war themselves, but on fixing humans beings in general and understanding why war is a standard remedy for society's problems.

Going back to my first post, is the culture of war depicted on tv and movies etc., by actors like John Wayne, what drove others like Cheney and Bush (all 3 of which either never served or actively avoided) to get us in this fine fix we are in?

How much is religion to blame for war?

 

Sam,

The original quote, from American philosopher George Santayana (Yes, Guillermo, he was born in Spain), is, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." The key, obviously, is "learn". Collectively, our politicians promptly forget whatever they may have learned when they act; they're concerned only about pleasing lobbyists for the big donors and increasing their own poll numbers. The current White House crowd doesn't worry about the polls, but there has been no learning from history, for certain.

In contrast, the last general to become President, Dwight Eisenhower, committed the US to defend the countries of Europe and the Middle East against military invasions, but favored strong diplomacy as the primary way to prevent aggression. He considered taking military action in Vietnam, but decided against it. He listened to the generals who opposed it on the grounds that it would be far too costly in lives and money, with no clear strategy for victory possible because of the chaotic political situation. In his farewell address, he warned the country against the threat of communism, but also warned against excessive government spending and allowing the huge and growing "miliary-industrial complex" to gain too much influence.

A key player in making history in WWII, he seemed to learn the lesson that military action must have both a worthy purpose and a comprehensive plan, including how it all ends. Before the current mess, both the top generals in the Pentagon and Colin Powell, formerly the top Pentagon general, all advised against invading Iraq.

Too bad most of Eisenhower's successors haven't learned much.

 

Before going off on one about rights and wrongs consider this -

If Man had not been so aggressive he would either still be in the trees or eaten by those nasty big aggresive beasts that did roam the world in the early years of mans history!

Unfortunately the aggresive streak that got us out of those trees has now moved mankind on into better ways of destroying those things that prevent us from living the way we want to! "The tribe from over the hill sees that we have better apples on our trees and want them for themselves sort of things" (and sometimes we are the tribe from over the hill!)

Having said that how come our greatest technical advances are made during periods of warfare! We're struggling to defend our way of life and we think better under pressure!

For why see what I said above about trees!

 

Unfortunately, you've fallen by the same sword with this post. So often a well intentioned effort with widespread even universal appeal, turns out to be dead wrong with 20 or 50 years of time passed. And conversely, even some very unpopular programs have proved spot on in retrospect.

So apparently we haven't even learned that the painful at present may turn out well, or that the easy course may be the really disastrous one.

Past conflicts which we now acknowledge were necessary had their strong detractors. Some were even universally hated.The conflict du jour certainly does not look tidy, but who can say with any certainty what it will turn out to be in 20 years time?

It sure felt good to Americans to be out of Viet Nam at the time, but what a dumb move that turned out to be! We saved *no* lives at all, in fact the ~4.5 million deaths by the Khmer Rouge can be attributed to the US pullout of that conflict, not to mention the brutal reprisals exacted by the VC on their fellow countrymen.

To top it off, insurgent and terror groups around the world used ( and admit so in their literature) the US abandonment of Viet Nam as a 'blueprint' for how to defeat the US, the western world, NATO alliance and etc.

All this and then Viet Nam abandons communism for a simple fascist dictatorship (masquerading as communism )

Jimbo

 

Well Media and movies certainly de-sentsitise the average person to the realities of warfare and violence but long before John Wayne was shooting **** out of the poor old Indians in the weekend cinemas the English were trying to run the Scots, France and England were fighting over a country that wasn't even theirs in the first place, the "New" Australians were exploiting and eradicating the "resident" Australians, etc, etc etc.

To refer back to a comment I made ages ago in some other forum here. "People (generally) as a species are not very nice to either each other or anything else". Greed and inherent natural aggression will pretty much guarantee there will always be some conflict somewhere. Technology just allows us to take it over a wider field.

Certainly some conflicts have a clear religious base. Religion only promotes peace so long as it's a peace on their terms. Somewhere in the far distant past (I'm not religious so don't take me to task literally) people took the supposed written/spoken "word of god" and interpereted it, re-wrote it in ways to serve their own agendas. To justify their actions.

Mychael

 

In much the same mold as the country they 'through out' but that one masquerades as a democracy!

 

I have trouble seeing the sword that I've fallen on, but I do see the repeating of history by those that should know better.

Sure, the present dilemas may get better. Or they may get much worse. Some feel the easy course is war, dialog and negotiations are the hard part. War is the last result, having a valid reason for war is helpful.

Here we are again, in the middle of someone else's civil war, as in VN.

Bogus theories got us in both conflicts, WMDs and Dominoe theory.

We've saved no lives at all, in fact our destroying Iraq has and will create problems for millions of people worldwide for who knows how many years. We didn't learn from doing the same in Cambodia, that to bomb and destroy the infrastructure there led directly to the Khmer Rouge ascending to power and the subsequent bloodbath.

You are putting the cart before the horse in these arguments. Our leaving wasn't a blueprint for how to defeat the US, the way we fought was. We left VN because we were defeated, we couldn't win. Our military and govt., with all it's resources and how many hundreds of thousands of men couldn't win. They didn't even have a plan to win. The powers that be didn't learn from history, and here we are again, Bagdad University, the biggest and best terrorist training and recruiting camp we could have possibly created, even if we tried. Once again, with no plan on how to win or even capable of winning.

It remains to be seen what our country will turn out to be, democracy is taking a back seat to something neo.

 

Nicely put Sam.

 

The Khmer Rouge had been seeking the right moment for several years. The right moment was when we left. The big mistake was, IMHO, not initially siding with Ho Chi Mihn in the first place; damn the French! He never gave a damn for communism; he fought with the US against Japan and sided with the Chinese Nats (with us). But after WWII he wanted a free and independent Viet Nam. We should have stood up to the French. There's been no love lost there anyway. He found that China was willing when we were not.

The founding fathers of the US NEVER intended for the US to be a democracy. They knew about democracies and spoke very poorly of them. Jefferson said democracies end either in a dictatorship or when everyone votes for their 'fair share' of the government till. Germany between the wars is a perfect example. Then there's Venezuela.

The US was supposed to be a constitutional republic. The only place where democracy should be practiced is in the halls of Congress. Excessive foreign entanglements are one of the unintented consequences of the 'Progressive' (toward more democracy) movement in the US. We can all probably think of a few more.

Jimbo

 

The details of why, what for and what if are just too many. Every conflict has at least two sides, otherwise it wouldn't be a conflict. The KR were probably just waiting for the moment, our leaving probably provided it. But making the locals sympathetic to them by indiscriminate bombing and illegal invasion...well, what if we hadn't of done that? What if we weren't in the region to begin with? What if we worked as hard to prevent war to begin with as compared to how much everyone suffers when it doesn't go smoothly? Has there ever been a smooth war? Even then, what's better, a smooth war or a rough peace?

Mainly though, I was just interested in the culture of war and how much it was promulgated over the airwaves and books in other places. I always thought, as a kid, that communication would be the downfall of institutions like communism etc, maybe war, poverty etc. Now I see that humans are not as swift as I thought and that truth, justice and the American way is not a universal ideal. Or that there is even such a thing. I agree that democracy as practiced is not working. One man, one vote can only lead to mediocracy, in fact I think it is already here. I seriously wonder if our system of govt. hasn't been so compromised by mediocre politicians and religion and general stupidity, that it has reached a tipping point where it is too off track and too cumbersome to be reasonably fixed, and a new start makes more sense.

 

As South East Asia is one of my all-time most loved places-
the subject raises a few thoughts for me.
We talk about these wars in the past-tense, long gone, history to be remembered, learned from or (as the case may) forgotten- yet in many and different ways this is not the case at all.

Travelling through Vietnam I was quite impressed with how much and far the country had (IMHO) 'moved on' from the war (you could of course make the argument that they won- and this makes it a little easier to 'move on')- there are memories of course, there is respect, pride, and of course a lot of pain (among other things)- but by and large I felt an overwhelming feeling that they had moved on and past the war- to a life and future beyond- even for the dispossessed and discriminated-against original southern Vietnamese.
But then of course there are other elements of war that move on even slower than human memories, hearts and minds. In some regions of Vietnam, the ongoing human evidence of both landmines and agent orange was absolutely sickening and infuriating.
Even in the long-distant day when all the landmines have finally worn themselves out on farmers, children, cows or time, the dioxins from agent orange are still going to be around, for some groups even getting worse as it collects in valley hotspots and such, or continues to wreak increasing genetic havoc with the following generations.

In Cambodia, well, to me there was so much sadness. Such a beautiful country- yet still so wounded- the wounds so fresh. Not much time there yet to move on yet- let alone from the remaining physical elements of the war that remain, unexploded ordinance, chemicals, same old story...

Yet for some, it is not just the proximity of time to the horrors of war, nor the remaining physical legacy from such. For some the war is still going.
Last I was over there a few years ago, with a best mate who lived in Bangkok I hired a couple of motorcross bikes, and we rode up into the central mountainous region of Laos.
There was a mystical spot on the map I wanted to explore- the "Xaisomboun restricted area"- "NO ENTRY".
On the road and throughout the country we tried to find out why it was restricted. Remote, they told us, bad roads, wet season, shrugs of shoulders.... "not good for you there!"
... So we went in and through anyway.
A day or so in, we started coming up against some serious military activity- big troop movements, transports, light artillery, fresh cut roads into the jungle mountains, and lots of scary guys with AK47's stopping us or forcing us off the road. With a lot of sweat and uncomfortable moments we got through, wondered what was happening, and moved on to other adventures- yet it wasn't until a few months later once I was home that research alerted me to what was actually happening there.
As it turns out, we were witnessing the Laos Army in the process of systematically hunting down the last regional remnants of the Black Hmong (as was occurring in the north and elsewhere of the country). The Hmong have never been forgiven for siding with the US in the CIA's 'secret war'. I don't need to go into the politics what, when, how and why this 'secret war' happened... my point is, these Hmong, a culture and people I have spent weeks in close and appreciative contact with in Vietnam (and came to love), were (and AFAIK still are) living like animals in the mountain highlands, hiding out, sick, starving, constantly on the move with no shelter and no rest, getting hunted and killed like animals, as an ongoing consequence (reparation) of a war fought so many years ago now that it is simply relegated into the pile of 'history to be learned from', somewhere in the lower stack of used cards- while fresh and new cards or wars continue to get played and stacked on top.

War is attrocious, and what it produces lasts long after Victory or defeat is announced.

This **** aint history yet.