Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.
George Bernard Shaw

History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we made today.
Henry Ford (1863 - 1947), Interview in Chicago Tribune, May 25th, 1916

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)

Alright gentlemen, I do see that I've whipped up a hornet's nest here.
First of all, let me clarify something. I did not mean to imply that I thought any of you were war mongers, or that you enjoyed the idea of people being killed, or that you wanted to be in on the killing in any way, shape or form.
I've read enough threads on mudcat to know most of the people who read and write here are thoughtful, reasoning, fairly intelligent souls.
I was wrong to go off on that tangent, and I apologize.

But when I began this thread, I was searching for something about what makes people tick. Why it is that there seems to be certain people at certain times that have the ability to marshall powerful forces, for good or ill, and in the doing, lead or drive entire societies behind them. It was a psychological question more than I think a historical one. But I phrased it badly, as I may be doing now, and what followed by a lot of you, were a slew of history lessons about that happened in wars, and it got into a line of debate that I can understand how I initiated with my "What if" postulation. Mea Culpa on that as well.

And when I said I felt physically ill, I was referring more to the feeling that our species seems to be stuck in a pattern it can't seem to break. That we (and let's face it, the "we" is more male than female") have an on-going fascination with aggression in all it's forms. It doesn't surprise me, nor do I want to lay blame on anyone. I am not, or I've always strived not to be, an intolerant person, even against intolerant people (not meaning any of you). I wrote more out of a sense of mourning. I mourn the loss of so many. I mourn the fact that there have been struggles initated and carried through to horrific ends. I mourn that it seems we do not learn from our history enough to figure out how to stop the horror, whether it's manifest through military aggression, political agendas, religious "traditions", territorial imperatives, or just survival of the fittest.

    The theory that there are often good reasons for wars is so hard for me, not from a realistic point of view-I'm not naive enough to think that a regeme like Hitler's or Stalin's should not have been fought against, but that it often seems more time is spent ruminating about those past pieces of history, than what is spent on practical application towards changing our future as a potentially pacific species, (and so here we are, yet again, sending people into battle). I think it needs to be dealt with at a deeper level, and I don't know if it's possible. I don't know if we can change certain natures. I feel I'm off on another tangent here, and again I apologise.

    Here in England, where I've been residing for the past 8 and half years (and before that, back in the 70s, I lived in Greece-under the junta and beyond, for a decade) I see documentaries on World War Two, weekly. It is still much in the conscience of people, and I do understand why that should be on many levels...But during these documentaries, the way they are written, it often goes like this; "Hitler killed..." "Stalin tortured...". And today, it's said by the media and in general "Saddam massacred...". All spoken as though these men actually got their own hands bloodied. And they didn't. They don't. The men at the top rarely do. They give the orders to others-ranks upon ranks of men who are willing to believe and actively perpetrate the slaughters.

    This was, and is, what I'm trying to get at. The reason, not from a political standpoint, or a moral one, but from something more visceral-that creates the leader who creates the actions done by others. Unfortunately, I realize that you can't just dissect the one without examining the whole..the times, the social conditions, all the rest. But it is what I was thinking when I began the thread.

Jeez! I feel like I've hurt some feelings here, but maybe I just pushed a lot of buttons, and maybe it's not a bad thing that it happened. I've learned some things I didn't know, which is always a good thing for me to do, and I've heard from a lot of interesting sources. I really do apologize yet again, if you thought I was blaming, or calling liars, or attacking any of you. It's all about something on a much bigger scale for me...the fate of our species, and I'm still interested in knowing your feelings about that, as well as what I hope I clarified a little more on what I was asking initially....ellen