by Galactor wrote:crank wrote:I have a great deal of contempt for those who think war and combat are somehow admirable, noble deeds. Do you want to defend that? Can you name many wars that were not a mass-slaughter of mostly the young and less well-off for the purposes of increasing the wealth and power of the elite? How many wars didn't involve the mass slaughter of innocents, usually for little to no reason? Even WWII, much of it resulted from BS, like the treatment of Germany after the stupidity and horrors of WWI, like what's been described above. A lot of the bullshit we're dealing with in the MidEast can be seen as stemming from the arrogant, ignorant, self-serving partitioning inflicted on the region post-WWI. The American Civil War, while a seeming noble cause, it still flowed from the ugliness of slavery along with the cowardice and greed of earlier politicians to deal with adequately, and the very few elites in the South that owned slaves wanting to keep their horrific institution, a slavery far more brutal and degrading than most historic forms of it. Don't think the Northern politicians didn't have a lot to do with prolonging the situation, just like they abandoned protecting blacks not too long after the war, there was plenty of self-serving accommodation for decades before the war.
Who do you think actually cares about soldiers more, the patriots who wave flags glorifying their service, their sacrifice, or those who try desperately to keep them from having to go to war in the first place? The biggest killer in the military over recent years is suicide, how noble is that? We're still blessed with way the fuck too many of the aholes and idiots that perpetrated the Iraq war, still subjected to their pontificating nonsense, shame and ridicule isn't strong enough, tar and feathers would help too.
So much tripe that I hardly know where to start.
I'll begin with this:I have a great deal of contempt for those who think war and combat are somehow admirable, noble deeds.
Is crank really suggesting that, for example, the actions of the so called "few" in the battle of Britain was not an admirable and noble deed and that contempt is warranted?
And that we shouldn't have memorials to the dead?
Perhaps crank should make a start by asking the members of the various old soldiers organisations whether or not there should be memorials to their dead.
Perhaps he should look them in the face while he tells them of his contempt for their sacrifices in these wars.
It really is contemptible what he has written.
It really is contemptible to not realize what war is, that no matter how 'valiant and noble' individual deeds may be, the bigger picture erases all of that. Wars, fighting, combat, all were a huge part of our history as a species, as we've gotten more civilized, this has abated more and more. It's time we grew up enough to realize how fucked up it is and stop. The more we glorify it, the harder that is and the longer it will take. Why do you think gung ho military types are so anxious to find and exalt 'heroes'? The reality is you get Tilmans, made a hero to hide the reality that he was killed by friendly fire and maybe even fragged. The fog of war? It's not mostly on the battlefield, it's in the bullshit propaganda of glorified patriotic war.
