I am 23 and yeah I may be stuck in my ways. I would like to say ww2 took power from 2 dictators in 2 small countries, but kept in power 2 dictators of 2 large countries. So even the most "moral" of wars WW2 is still a zero sum game. So one guy dies for "freedom" and the other for another dictator. Infact on average more people died for dictators in ww2 than democracies. What does that tell you?
JWs gladly benefit from war yet refuse to honour the dead
by catlady 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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XQsThaiPoes
Sorry if I sound harsh. I did not mean to permanently offend you. It is just you would think if war was good as much of it that has gone on things would get better. In reality things have remained constant. Warfare does bring new technology that can make things better, but I doubt any soldier goes off to die so the next generation can have better technology.
Before you join up ask some veterans that went into combat about it. If they tell you the truth they will tell you it was exciting, but emotionally it sucks. You literally have to break your brain or have a broken brain to exist in that environment why would anyone choose it? I am drawn to it, but I know it is because I am messed up. It is nothing I would want to inflame prematurely.
Oh and BTW 40 years ago "kill a commie for Christ" was drilled into american soldeirs heads the same commies that died for our freedoms 20 years before that. If america and britan was so just how come it did not rid the world of all this "evil"? They had the A bomb, american industry, fresh american soldiers, and a foot hold at the door of both of these.
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irishayes
Being an American, I just have to ask:
What would you have us do after September 11? What are the alternatives to fighting terrorism?
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Leolaia
What in heck are you smoking in college? War is a zero sum game! It just reduces the population that is all.
Oh really? What do you think many wars are fought for? Natural resources, land, water, etc. The Romans fought wars all throughout Gaul and committed genocide....definitely "reducing the population". But did the Roman Empire not benefit from the war? Did they not receive unlimited access to gold, silver, and other minerals in these lands, revenue from subjugated nations, and over a million slaves (drawn from their many wars of conquest as POWs) to perform all the mundane, drugery tasks so that native Romans could have increased leisure? Was not the Pax Romana won through war? Here is something from an academic essay on the Roman Empire:
The Roman empire was one of the largest political systems ever created, and one of the longest lasting. Only the Chinese empire lasted longer. At its height, in the second century CE, the Roman empire stretched from the Atlantic coast of north Africa to the Black Sea, and from Hadrian's wall in the north of England to the Red Sea. Its land mass was equal to more than half of continental USA. The territory once occupied by the Roman empire is now split among more than thirty nation states. Its population totalled perhaps sixty million people, or about one fifth or one sixth of the whole world's then population. Size matters; it was an important source and index of the power which Rome exercised. In a preindustrial economy, land and labour are the two primary ingredients of wealth. The larger the Roman empire became, the more people it subjected, the more taxes it exacted. The more wealth the Roman state controlled, the more territory it was able to acquire and defend. For example, between 225 and 25 BCE, the period of Rome's striking imperial expansion, the population subject to Roman rule increased perhaps fifteenfold, from about four to sixty million people. But the government's tax revenues rose by at least a hundredfold (from about 4 - 8 million HS in 250 BCE to over 800 million HS in 25 BCE, at roughly constant prices).1 Rome had conquered and absorbed several mini-empires (Macedon, Syria, Egypt) and numerous tribes. She had become the mistress of the Mediterranean basin and beyond. The huge size of the Roman empire was a symptom of fanatical dedication at all levels of Roman society to fighting wars, to military discipline, and of the desire both for immediate victory and long-term conquest. 'No human force could resist Roman might" (Livy 1.16). Some Romans even imagined that they could, if they wished, rule or even had already 'subjugated the whole world' ( Res Gestae , preamble). 2 As it was they absorbed all that (or more than what) was then worth conquering, with the giant exception of the Parthian empire on its eastern borders. Further expansion, as the first emperor Augustus was reported to have said, would have been like fishing with a golden hook (Suetonius, Augustus 25). The prize was not worth the risk. A Roman historian in the second century, looking back over more than a century of 'long and stable peace and the empire's secure prosperity', wrote: 'Since they (the emperors) control the best regions of the earth and sea, they wisely wish to preserve what they have rather than to extend the empire endlessly by including barbarian tribes, which are poor and unprofitable' (Appian, History , Preface 7).
Many nations have tried to reproduce the success of the Roman Empire, but failed miserably. For those who fail, it could indeed be a "zero sum game" for the losses may outweigh whatever is gained. But another great "success" is that of the United States of America which through the many Indian wars of the 19th century and the Spanish-American War gained territory, natural resources, and enough international influence to set it up as the burgeoning superpower it was to become as a result of the two world wars of the 20th century. You might want to read "LIES MY TEACHER TOLD ME" for more information on the history of war in the continental United States. Americans can thank their military for ousting Native Americans from their lands and removing Indian resistence to the annexation of Indian lands to the United States (e.g. the Black Hawk War, the Seminole Wars, the Modoc War, Navajo and Apache Wars, the Black Hills War, etc.). Your view of war does not bear out the testimony of history.
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XQsThaiPoes
Fight Terrorism? The "War on Terror" is an oxymorron.
Terrorism BTW is already illegal and can be policed inside America like any other crime those jets took off from American soil. 9/11 was a crime but like any other crime rape for example can you prevent it by dropping bombs?
This war makes zero sense if America is not an empire. If America is an empire then it is very incompetent. It used to be legal to support the subversion of a foreign power thought terrorism BTW it was called the cold war.
If American is not fighting for oil or imperialism, which I hope it is. Then it is stupid, wasting lives, and money for a temporary false sense of security. Because of the nature of mankind you can?t control people unless you indoctrinate them as children, bribe them, or force them. America is not bribing well enough, and its concept of force is juvenile because of politicians that do not want to seem blood guilty.
American literally has to butcher those people to make them behave just like they butchered the Germans and Japanese in WW2. Because it is a guerilla war America will have to execute lots of people to end it deliberately, or accidentally. I believe that America rather accidentally kill people than do like ww2 and hang a few extra influential Germans for made up war crimes.
I am not saying this is a good thing, but the history of how these types of conflicts are naturally resolved are now called war crimes or terrorism. Ever since the war crimes concept was reinvented in WW2 few conflicts have ended as abruptly. America can legally skirt the war crimes issue and wholesale kill people by classing them as spies. I don?t know of any politician savvy enough and brave enough to do so.
That?s my take the war on terror a stupid war that hopefully has a clandestine ulterior motive that only appears inept on the surface. Otherwise it is just inept.
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XQsThaiPoes
Leolia you are smart, but you agree with me.
Zero Sum Game
A game in which players make payments only to each other. One player's loss is the other player's gain, so the total amount of "money" available remains constant.
Did they not receive unlimited access to gold, silver, and other minerals in these lands, revenue from subjugated nations, and over a million slaves (drawn from their many wars of conquest as POWs) to perform all the mundane, drugery tasks so that native Romans could have increased leisure?
The territory once occupied by the Roman empire is now split among more than thirty nation states.
BTW the Mongols had a larger empire and better army.
War can make money, but that?s really not what I was addressing. People think war makes things better or 'freer' or what ever. War does nothing, but eliminate competition for resources AKA killing people. Morally winning a war means nothing. If a soldier wants to go to war to make money fine become a mercenary, but why pretend you dying matters on some moral scale? If two cannibals are fighting to the death does it matter who wins? War is socio-economic cannibalism.
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exjdub
x Laura x
Bravo! Although I do not necessarily agree with your entire viewpoint, your thoughts are well written and well thought out. Your point about age is on the money. Never let anyone bring up age to invalidate your argument...but I guess I don't have to tell you that.
Exjdub (an old fart, but not set in my ways...well maybe that's not entirely true.)
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Leolaia
I don't agree with your assessment. Different cultures place different values on resources. It is not a zero-sum exchange when the exchange itself produces more wealth for the victors than it had at the time of the war for the dispossessed. That is part of the justification at the time for imperialism, that the colonialists could make better use of resources (i.e. raping resources) than the indigenous peoples who lived on the lands could. War also commodifies the peoples themselves via slavery, at least in the case of the losers to the Spanish in the Americas and the Gauls in the case of the Romans, producing new "wealth" for the victors which did not exist before the war.
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XQsThaiPoes
New wealth? In the case of most civilizations they fall apart, and release the wealth back into the system. What I guess I am trying to say is it is socio-economic laws of thermodynamics (yeah I know mixed metaphores). The resources exploited were not new. The people who became slaves were already existing and working. They were normal people that were resocialized. The raw materials were already in the ground. Taking them from the Indians is no different than Indians taking them from each other, which they did.
Most cases it is one civilization has better technology, and can exploit the resources better. Like I said war does bring technology to the table, but does any soldier die so in a years later yuppies can drive humvees?
The only time when war is not a zero sum game is simple genocide. Then someone can win for good! Civil war is another thing that nobody likes to mention. Now civil war is a pejorative. Being truthful where two groups in the same society hash it out does not produce "new" wealth. I can?t see how winning a war makes things collectively better by the merit of simply winning. My statement is wars make things temporally better by reducing competition, just like a natural disaster.
To prevent or survive natural disaster people invent religion. To prevent or survive war people invent government.
If you want to say that technology makes life better, then I would say it only makes it better for those that exploit it, and technology is not only bound to warfare. Technology does not change human nature yet. Maybe in the future technology can eliminate human nature as we know it and every thing will become peaceful. Until then war will drive us extinct or drive us there faster providing we don't end up in another dark age.
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galaxy7
The famous JW quote:" If everyone was a witness there would be no war"
It would be interesting to know how many witnesses there would be if everyone sat around while Hitler marched around the world.
They dont mind all the benifits of a free society.They use the constitution to their advantage when they need it in a court of law.
The reason they can peddle their mountain of books in a free world is because people died for them to have that right in a free society
The world isnt an imaginary paradise and unfortunately we need protection as 9/11 can attest.
I dont like war or the thought young soldiers are dying but I remember them
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our places; and in the sky
The larks, still singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below
We lived,felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved, and were loved, and now
we lie in Flanders fields.
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break the faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields