Regardless of ideological preferences, praising liberty or justice in the form of equal rights for all, war seems to be a darwinian inevitability. Except for some peaceniks who may not even defend themselves from an aggressor or hide behind the meanest son of a bitch willing to fight your bully.
The use of coercion, to hold power over at least one other individual, is the definition of politics. Force, in whatever shape or form has been the buidling block of states, whom always demanded a monopoly of violence. It used to be legitimized because those ruling the land were divinely inspired to do so, now it is the abstract will of the people. Which only a person or party can translate into rules, which are to be followed by all loyal, choosing and willing participants of this political system.
Those unwilling to participate in state-violence, economic slavery, exploitation, torture, incarceration and other techniques of terror (a weapon of the strong, not the weak), are beaten down brutally by the systems of submission they so bitterly oppose.
But what about actual war, the least controversial case of all. To say it can be banned from human society is so utopic, it has no coherent supporters in the mainstream, general population. Not only is the concept part of who we are, we actively participate in wars (because we were asked to provide logistics -belgium-, ignore the breaking of international law -europe- or simply because all those other people living elsewhere need to die untill everybody is happy).
Belgians often use the argument or train of though their army is too small to do any real damage. How many people a day can you really kill with F-16′s anyway? And even though we’re sending troops to the more dangerous parts of Afghanistan, there’s no way pakistan/kashmir/taliban/al qaeda can actually kill one of ours (eg. real people). So this war can not be avoided. We must stay there untill the lines of the middle east are redrawn to fit our needs (no point in doing it out of nobility of the heart).
I however, suggest that there is truth to the saying that “You can not win a war any more than an eartquake”. You merely survive it. There’s nothing intrinsic about war that cannot be reached with other means. If you state the successes and breakthroughs (medical or technical) during highly fascist and totalitarian uses of the population and the factors of production are only possible during the killing of soldiers/civilians or destroying of the infrastructure (indirectly killing eg. 1million of the 2million Pot Pot was blamed for, like the US did), you are perhaps even more naïve in your preconceptions of war than I am.
If you think war cannot be avoided. Point to one just war happening right now. If you cannot think of any and want to bring up WO II. Talk to the survivors, NOW, because they’ll be dead in 10 years. If you fear somebody bombing your country without you being able to bomb back. Steal USA’s nukes and ensure the MAD strategy for all. But I don’t think peace, prosperity or harmony will come from it. If any of those should be goals for our politicians that is.
War Made Easy
Other than the interesting comment on Phil Donahue, the documentary (if what Michael Moore does can be called that, I’m also allowed to use the term in this manner) War Made Easy leaves us with this list:
WO I: 10% civilian casualties
WO II: 50%
Vietnam: 70%
Iraq: 90%
Of course, these statistics could be considered skewed because the latter war continues long after the army (and even most insurgents) are “neutralized”.
Killing people from a fighter jet, bomber or from executive orders from the white house remains to be considered as morally superior than those are not only willing to kill, but also willing to die.
