As well as Van Wilder, I caught the end of some war movie on TV last night, which always makes me sick. The thing that amazes me is that people can walk away from combat with feelings of camaraderie and pride… I don't understand how they don't walk away saying, “This is the sickest, most fucked up thing that humans can do to each other. I will spend the rest of my days speaking out against it.”
Now, a lot do, especially after combat with little to no “moral” justification like Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on, such as groups like Veterans for Peace and even Veterans for Common Sense. But having seen it first hand, how can all people not see the perversion in one group of people co-murdering with another group of people in an orgy of evil? How can people like through it and not shout out War is Murder and War is Ignorance?
"We got off the train. Tall, strong hard-muscled Americans. Our drill instructors taught us how to march, and how to crawl through machine gun fire. They taught us how to rip out the enemy's throat and how to fire bullets into his brain. Some of these trainees would actually come home like Trumbo's Johnny. Others would die crying for their girlfriends or mothers, mouths clogged with blood and snow, eyes frozen open. All of this would change us. Not for just awhile, but for the rest of our lives. War does that. Gets inside. Doesn't want to leave. I carry it. A discovery, a wound, a challenge. A face that cries for mercy in the world where more than forty armed conflicts are raging."
- Philip Berrigan
It's just a stupid thing for us to be doing. Life is great, as far as the hospitability of the environment and the ability to grow food, all over the world. This planet and our sun give us far far more energy than we are currently consuming, yet we wage bloody wars over highly inefficient and short-sighted fuels. It's just really stupid when you look at it on any objective level and you'd think that even if the “leaders” with their greed-filled drives can't get that through their heads won't stop, that the common man who's sent to die would have the strength to stand up and say, “You know what? I don't want to die for this…”
But instead they do exactly what they've been designed to do… make the situation worse by directing their anger at those that should be their allies — fellow oppressed people. In Iraq, we're seeing young Americans and young Iraqis killing each other and bystanders of all sorts daily, on orders of repressive rulers with no gain to themselves, their families, or even their countries (or the world). It's very sad.
Post a Comment