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The tragedy is that poor unfortunate grunts only get to know it's a racket after it's too late - when half of them are already dead. Unfortunately, it seems to

The tragedy is that poor unfortunate grunts only get to know it's a racket after it's too late - when half of them are already dead. Unfortunately, it seems to be a chararistic of the human condition that learning about war is a slow prossess and that the horrors of experiencing it cannot passed down from one generation to the next. Experience gathered over millennia has demonstrated that it's essentially impossible to teach recruits before they enter the military that war is not only a racket but also it will be the most horrible and devastating experience of their lives. The fact is, it's impossible to put an old head onto young shoulders.

tonetheman 5y ago
In the Southern US the religious and the Republicans actively attempt to erase wars. Most recently in TN where they ban books about it. It would help if the US would actually teach history instead of pretend like it did not happen.
- buzzard1 5y ago
  N
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "Most recently in TN where they ban books about it." That's a worry. What kind? Those that put war in a negative light presumably. "It would help if the US would actually teach history..." The US isn't alone, many others do the same. The other worrying observation is that antiwar sentiment doesn't last more than a generation or so if that (the Vietnam generation was about as anti as it has gotten in my lifetime and come the 1980s/90s the feeling had almost totally dissipated).
buzzard1 5y ago
Do you believe that a just war has ever been waged?
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Yes, but it ought to be absolutely the last resort. In that sense I'm not a pacifist (I once had a unform on but I was lucky to avoid major trouble). If you've ever experienced the system and mil training it's impossible to unlearn it.
- anm89 5y ago
  Do you believe there is some objective thing called "just"?
  - hilbert42 5y ago
    Pretty simple really. If you are being invaded without provovation and every attempt at diplomacy has failed, and going past form, you know that if your enemy succeeds in overrunning you, then your women wiil be raped and you and your children killed then you've no option other than to fight with all your might. That's the extreme case, at what point on a sliding scale the options change is moot and subject to vigouos debate. That's where things become complicated, not far down the scale you'll be faced with a serious moral dilemma.
    - Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
      That's the extreme case, but there's also the argument that the Afghans were fighting a just war from their perspective against foreign invasion. Despite all the horrible stuff they're inflicting on their own people day to day.
      - hilbert42 5y ago
        That's the big, big problem! Let me give you a few well-known countries and you can think about whether there are any parallels between them and Afghanistan. 1 England: the English Civil War (very simplified description). The terrorists as we would call them nowadays [the Parliamentarians] won and King Charles I was executed. The people that now rule the UK have inherited the system of government originally set up by those victors. (Yes, there have been changes but we've stopped executing kings). If we had Dr Who's Tardis and took a modern army back to restore the monarchy (the then rightful heir to the throne King Charles), then would this be a legitimate exercise? 2. What about that rebel mob of colonies in the US led by Washington in 1776? They defied the rightful King of Great Britain an Ireland, George III, and many, many people on both sides died during their act of succession. 3. Then there's the American Civil War/The War Between the States. It can be argued strongly that Lincoln started the war; and or did nothing to stop it or defuse the tense situation between the time of his victory in the polls and that of his inauguration. In the process of saving the Union Lincoln started a war that killed more Americans than in all other wars that the US has fought in ever since - Spanish, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc. Like Pontus Pilate, he sat on his hands and did nothing to stop it. It can be argued that by 1860 slavery was on the decline world wide and that given several more decades the South would have been forced to abandon slavery due to pressure, sanctions, from other countries such as the UK. A trade embargo on Southern cotton would have bitten the South very hard. In the grand scheme off things, Lincoln could now be classed as a war criminal for starting a war that killed somewhere between 600,000 and a million people. Do the utilitarian equation - was that number of lives worth it when waiting a decade or two may have seen the same outcome? When you consider the inequlity and illtreatment that negros have had in the intervening 150+ years since the War then the answer may not be so obvious. Today, current rulers in Washington are the beneficiaries of both of those conflicts. Thus one could ask the question about how legitimate is their rule nowadays (many Southerners would still probably question the victor's legitimacy). 4. 1789 France. The French Revolution culminated in the execution of the legitimate king of France Louis XVI in the Place de la Concorde by mob of essentially out of control 'terrorists'. What followed was The Reign of Terror (la Terreur) - barbarism, death and destruction beyond anything seen since the Crusades of the 12th and 13th Centuries and not equalled again until the Nazis came to power in the 1930s. The current government of France has inherited many aspects of that violent revolution and now claims legitimacy to rule the country as a republic instead of a kingdom. 5. The same goes for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the murder of the legitimate czar of Russia, Czar Nicolas. I hear everyone saying hey, hey now. However, think about it for a moment, most of our governments today have their historical routes in one form of insurgency or revolution or another. Governing the world is no easy matter and it's always been thus. I'm not here to argue one way or other except to say you're correct about Afghanistan but then that's only correct inasmuch as to who one considers to have legitimacy. My view is that the poor longsuffering ordinary people of Afghanistan should be allowed to live and run their lives as they see fit without hindrance and interference. But then that's taking the naïve view and it's certainly not the current reality. Yes, terrorism is alive and well Afghanistan but it was also the case in Vietnam with the Vietcong. Now, that's all over and friendship has been restored between the belligerents. Trouble is that two million people had to die in the process. Afghanistan has had a rotten time for much of its existence, especially so since the British tried to tame the country in the 19th Century. Many of the troubles in the Middle East in the 20th Century can be traced back to the dissolution and break up of the Ottoman Empire after WWI together with interference from Western countries, the UK, France etc. Problems that arose from those ill-considered policies which were forced on those countries more than a centuary ago are still with us today. For example, the 1917 Balfour Agreement was a well meaning but somewhat failed attempt to sort out the Jewish-Arab problem in that area of the world and it is still in an unmitigated mess today. Whenever grand political policies are introduced always expect there'll be fallout from them for hundreds of years to come.
SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
It doesn't help that each new generation gets a barrage of propaganda pushed onto them equating military service with heroics, honour, patriotism, and so forth. We could teach the next generation that war is bad, if we wanted to, but since the decision to go to war is made by the same government that sets the educational curriculum, well, odds are slim.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "It doesn't help that each new generation gets a barrage of propaganda pushed onto them equating military service with heroics, honour, patriotism, and so forth." I certainly agree. In my opinion, the basic principles are simple but in practice things get complicated very quickly. If I'm not careful here I'll be quoting everyone from pacifists through to Clausewitz and we will all be bogged down in a mire of detail. This is a huge subject, thousands of books have been written about it. I'll keep it short. The propaganda and heroics are long inbred and they go back a very long way - thousands of years and there's no better place to start than with the famous Latin quote from the Roman poet Horace: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" "It is sweet and fitting to die for the homeland (one's country)" Just about everyone knows these facts but for the few that may not I'll repeat them. During WWI the English poet Wilfred Owen wrote probably the most famous poem of the War and it's a very cynical and poignant reminder of how terrible war is. Therein he lashes out against the wisdom of Horace's quote. Lttle else need be be said. The poem is short enough to quote here: . Dulce et Decorum est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, Bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,– My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. ____ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_decorum_est_pro_patria_mori https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_decorum_est_pro_pat...
wkearney99 5y ago
I live in Maryland and keep a boat at a marina in Annapolis. By chance I meet students from the Naval Academy now and then. Every time I meet one the advice I share with them is I greatly hope no one will have to call them to action and get them or their fellow soldiers killed as a result of more stupid military adventurism. And every single time there's been a look of revelation, if just a brief glimmer, as they realize the point I'm making. Will it matter? Maybe. At some point one of them might be in a position to make better decisions about their fate and that of their subordinates. I do hope some random old guy saying "I hope they don't get you killed" certainly matters lot more than empty "thank you for your service" nonsense.
- hilbert42 5y ago
  "And every single time there's been a look of revelation, if just a brief glimmer, as they realize the point I'm making." Yeah, let's hope it sinks in, but with some it can be too slow - after the event when they've PTSD. I recall around the time I was drafted I occasionally got into discussion about these issues (it was never a big or oft repeated topic). My current stance now has changed very little from my position back then. For some, the 'bravado' mob, perhaps 10% -15% of the platoon, took my position of war being the absolute last resort as me being 'yellow'. It never erupted into serious animosity but I was never part of their in group. Others thought similarly to me but wouldn't say much (or for that matter neither did I), still others said nothing. The interesting aspect of this was that I developed these views very early when I was a child. My father and my uncles served in WWII and whilst the War was mentioned it was always a muted discussion and I learned quickly that there was something truly rotten about war - I sort of picked the notion up as if by osmosis. I often wonder what the home environment of the 'bravado' mob was like. In one sense it can't have been too different to mine in that almost every father of kids in my school had also been in the War. Perhaps it's one's temperament or personality in that I picked up the negative vibes whilst others did not. I've often thought about it since but I can't say I'm any more informed now than in the past.

tonetheman 5y ago

In the Southern US the religious and the Republicans actively attempt to erase wars. Most recently in TN where they ban books about it. It would help if the US would actually teach history instead of pretend like it did not happen.

buzzard1 5y ago
N
hilbert42 5y ago
"Most recently in TN where they ban books about it." That's a worry. What kind? Those that put war in a negative light presumably. "It would help if the US would actually teach history..." The US isn't alone, many others do the same. The other worrying observation is that antiwar sentiment doesn't last more than a generation or so if that (the Vietnam generation was about as anti as it has gotten in my lifetime and come the 1980s/90s the feeling had almost totally dissipated).

buzzard1 5y ago

Do you believe that a just war has ever been waged?

hilbert42 5y ago
Yes, but it ought to be absolutely the last resort. In that sense I'm not a pacifist (I once had a unform on but I was lucky to avoid major trouble). If you've ever experienced the system and mil training it's impossible to unlearn it.
anm89 5y ago
Do you believe there is some objective thing called "just"?
- hilbert42 5y ago
  Pretty simple really. If you are being invaded without provovation and every attempt at diplomacy has failed, and going past form, you know that if your enemy succeeds in overrunning you, then your women wiil be raped and you and your children killed then you've no option other than to fight with all your might. That's the extreme case, at what point on a sliding scale the options change is moot and subject to vigouos debate. That's where things become complicated, not far down the scale you'll be faced with a serious moral dilemma.
  - Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
    That's the extreme case, but there's also the argument that the Afghans were fighting a just war from their perspective against foreign invasion. Despite all the horrible stuff they're inflicting on their own people day to day.
    - hilbert42 5y ago
      That's the big, big problem! Let me give you a few well-known countries and you can think about whether there are any parallels between them and Afghanistan. 1 England: the English Civil War (very simplified description). The terrorists as we would call them nowadays [the Parliamentarians] won and King Charles I was executed. The people that now rule the UK have inherited the system of government originally set up by those victors. (Yes, there have been changes but we've stopped executing kings). If we had Dr Who's Tardis and took a modern army back to restore the monarchy (the then rightful heir to the throne King Charles), then would this be a legitimate exercise? 2. What about that rebel mob of colonies in the US led by Washington in 1776? They defied the rightful King of Great Britain an Ireland, George III, and many, many people on both sides died during their act of succession. 3. Then there's the American Civil War/The War Between the States. It can be argued strongly that Lincoln started the war; and or did nothing to stop it or defuse the tense situation between the time of his victory in the polls and that of his inauguration. In the process of saving the Union Lincoln started a war that killed more Americans than in all other wars that the US has fought in ever since - Spanish, WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc. Like Pontus Pilate, he sat on his hands and did nothing to stop it. It can be argued that by 1860 slavery was on the decline world wide and that given several more decades the South would have been forced to abandon slavery due to pressure, sanctions, from other countries such as the UK. A trade embargo on Southern cotton would have bitten the South very hard. In the grand scheme off things, Lincoln could now be classed as a war criminal for starting a war that killed somewhere between 600,000 and a million people. Do the utilitarian equation - was that number of lives worth it when waiting a decade or two may have seen the same outcome? When you consider the inequlity and illtreatment that negros have had in the intervening 150+ years since the War then the answer may not be so obvious. Today, current rulers in Washington are the beneficiaries of both of those conflicts. Thus one could ask the question about how legitimate is their rule nowadays (many Southerners would still probably question the victor's legitimacy). 4. 1789 France. The French Revolution culminated in the execution of the legitimate king of France Louis XVI in the Place de la Concorde by mob of essentially out of control 'terrorists'. What followed was The Reign of Terror (la Terreur) - barbarism, death and destruction beyond anything seen since the Crusades of the 12th and 13th Centuries and not equalled again until the Nazis came to power in the 1930s. The current government of France has inherited many aspects of that violent revolution and now claims legitimacy to rule the country as a republic instead of a kingdom. 5. The same goes for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the murder of the legitimate czar of Russia, Czar Nicolas. I hear everyone saying hey, hey now. However, think about it for a moment, most of our governments today have their historical routes in one form of insurgency or revolution or another. Governing the world is no easy matter and it's always been thus. I'm not here to argue one way or other except to say you're correct about Afghanistan but then that's only correct inasmuch as to who one considers to have legitimacy. My view is that the poor longsuffering ordinary people of Afghanistan should be allowed to live and run their lives as they see fit without hindrance and interference. But then that's taking the naïve view and it's certainly not the current reality. Yes, terrorism is alive and well Afghanistan but it was also the case in Vietnam with the Vietcong. Now, that's all over and friendship has been restored between the belligerents. Trouble is that two million people had to die in the process. Afghanistan has had a rotten time for much of its existence, especially so since the British tried to tame the country in the 19th Century. Many of the troubles in the Middle East in the 20th Century can be traced back to the dissolution and break up of the Ottoman Empire after WWI together with interference from Western countries, the UK, France etc. Problems that arose from those ill-considered policies which were forced on those countries more than a centuary ago are still with us today. For example, the 1917 Balfour Agreement was a well meaning but somewhat failed attempt to sort out the Jewish-Arab problem in that area of the world and it is still in an unmitigated mess today. Whenever grand political policies are introduced always expect there'll be fallout from them for hundreds of years to come.

SturgeonsLaw 5y ago

It doesn't help that each new generation gets a barrage of propaganda pushed onto them equating military service with heroics, honour, patriotism, and so forth. We could teach the next generation that war is bad, if we wanted to, but since the decision to go to war is made by the same government that sets the educational curriculum, well, odds are slim.

hilbert42 5y ago
"It doesn't help that each new generation gets a barrage of propaganda pushed onto them equating military service with heroics, honour, patriotism, and so forth." I certainly agree. In my opinion, the basic principles are simple but in practice things get complicated very quickly. If I'm not careful here I'll be quoting everyone from pacifists through to Clausewitz and we will all be bogged down in a mire of detail. This is a huge subject, thousands of books have been written about it. I'll keep it short. The propaganda and heroics are long inbred and they go back a very long way - thousands of years and there's no better place to start than with the famous Latin quote from the Roman poet Horace: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" "It is sweet and fitting to die for the homeland (one's country)" Just about everyone knows these facts but for the few that may not I'll repeat them. During WWI the English poet Wilfred Owen wrote probably the most famous poem of the War and it's a very cynical and poignant reminder of how terrible war is. Therein he lashes out against the wisdom of Horace's quote. Lttle else need be be said. The poem is short enough to quote here: . Dulce et Decorum est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind. Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, Bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,– My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. ____ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_decorum_est_pro_patria_mori https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_decorum_est_pro_pat...

wkearney99 5y ago

I live in Maryland and keep a boat at a marina in Annapolis. By chance I meet students from the Naval Academy now and then. Every time I meet one the advice I share with them is I greatly hope no one will have to call them to action and get them or their fellow soldiers killed as a result of more stupid military adventurism. And every single time there's been a look of revelation, if just a brief glimmer, as they realize the point I'm making. Will it matter? Maybe. At some point one of them might be in a position to make better decisions about their fate and that of their subordinates. I do hope some random old guy saying "I hope they don't get you killed" certainly matters lot more than empty "thank you for your service" nonsense.

hilbert42 5y ago
"And every single time there's been a look of revelation, if just a brief glimmer, as they realize the point I'm making." Yeah, let's hope it sinks in, but with some it can be too slow - after the event when they've PTSD. I recall around the time I was drafted I occasionally got into discussion about these issues (it was never a big or oft repeated topic). My current stance now has changed very little from my position back then. For some, the 'bravado' mob, perhaps 10% -15% of the platoon, took my position of war being the absolute last resort as me being 'yellow'. It never erupted into serious animosity but I was never part of their in group. Others thought similarly to me but wouldn't say much (or for that matter neither did I), still others said nothing. The interesting aspect of this was that I developed these views very early when I was a child. My father and my uncles served in WWII and whilst the War was mentioned it was always a muted discussion and I learned quickly that there was something truly rotten about war - I sort of picked the notion up as if by osmosis. I often wonder what the home environment of the 'bravado' mob was like. In one sense it can't have been too different to mine in that almost every father of kids in my school had also been in the War. Perhaps it's one's temperament or personality in that I picked up the negative vibes whilst others did not. I've often thought about it since but I can't say I'm any more informed now than in the past.