Re: Ain't Gonna Study War No More

[ltrwritr@moscow.com (Mark Rounds)]

Hi Folks

I have a couple of points to make on this issue.  First of all, those rough
men and women are not a class apart.  They are Americans.  They are drawn
from all classes and political stripes.  They are not robots programmed to
kill.  It is the leadership elected to this country that controls who and
what the goals of this force are and that is as it should be.  To villify
them accomplishes nothing.

Secondly, the only thing a military can buy is time.  They don't enforce
peace through intimidation.  I think we can all agree that is a ludicrous
assumption.  It is the profound hope of everyone who has ever served in the
military (myself and Mr. Kaag included) that after every war and battle, the
politico's will use the space and the advantage bought with the lives of
brave men and women on both sides to effect real change.  

Sometimes they do.  The Marshall Plan in Europe after WWII is an example of
when they got it right.  The wars the embroilled Europe for a millenia  were
abolished.  Sadly, many more times they don't even try.  After Vietnam, both
sides wanted to point fingers and neither was willing to change their world
view.  The only thing that really changed was a resolve in the armed forces
never to be ill used like that again.  In our current age, we have dipolmacy
by Tomahawk missile that only enrages people and does solve anything.

As to the quote by Hermann Goering, he was right for his time and space.
Nobody, but esspecially those who have seen comrades die want war to darken
our shores again.   But again I can point to the Vietnam War and say that
the public did finally sway those who make the decisions about whether or
not we go to War.  My personal opinion is that much of the apathy we see in
America today towards the political process is the fact that neither of the
major political parties at that time had the fortitude to ask some hard
questions about exactly what we were doing there and why.  Instead, we had
to suffer through a complicated fan dance where both parties said that the
other was to blame and both said that they were the ones with a solution.
It was bull then and now.  I hope they learned a lesson but I am not holding
my breath.

Until we grow up as a species, we will have to keep blustering that
thrashing around, buying time until we can leave war behind.  Groups like
the Taliban, and the Bath party to name a few still believe that by fear and
intimidation they can enforce their will on others.  While they exist, the
need for armed forces will not go away.  

If you know a better way, please lead the way as I never want my son to see
some of the things that I have seen.

Mark Rounds




>You know, those "rough men" (and women!) make peace less possible, not more. 
>  The idea that armies secure peace through threat is just as nonsensical to 
>me as pacificism is to you.  Peace is not the substitution of intimidation 
>for active warfare.
>
>Here's a quotation from the War Resisters League that I find pertinent:
>
>"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a 
>farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to 
>come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want 
>war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That 
>is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who 
>determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people 
>along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a 
>parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
>Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the 
>leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being 
>attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing 
>the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
>Hermann Goering (April 18,1946, as quoted in Gustave Gilbert's *Nuremberg 
>Diary,* Farrar, Straus & Co, 1947.)
>
>
>
>
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