BS: War

Subject: BS: War
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 02:10 AM

Why Do governments send men to war?
Surely in the 21st century there must be a better way?

I heard recently that over 500 American men have beeen killed in Iraq in the last few months, [I think theres around 100 english men killed] Why?
I'm still on the army reserve list, [I could be recalled to serve my country in time of war, but there is NO way I would go to Iraq]
[I am not a coward, I am a trained soldier, and if England were invaded, I would be happy to do my bit, in fasct i would probably be amongst the first to volounteer to defend our country, but I would sooner go to jail than take part in an unjust war.

what do others think?

Why are politicians so keen to go to war?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 02:27 AM

for the same reason that rulers have always sent their men and women to war...greed.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Neighmond
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:19 AM

What a change in the business it would be
What a different situation we would see!
If all politicians were the first sent on missions
Instead of grunts like me!

Chaz

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:39 AM

A life is a high price to pay for anything.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:48 AM

Are politicians so keen to go to war?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 03:54 AM

Well, I've told this story before, but it hasn't spread very far…

In 1940, when WWII was going pretty good I asked my teacher why does anyone want war?

She said that unjust governments like to have wars because it gets the people to obey them; they'll say anybody who criticises the government is disloyal. I could understand that.

One of my major enlightenments.

So sixty-odd years ago that knowledge was available to a nine-year-old in North Idaho, and in terms he could understand, but it seems it hasn't spread to a lot of the citizenry.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 04:00 AM

Yes , Teribus.

Wars aren't started by anyone else.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 05:42 AM

Are politicians keen to go to war?

No.

But, they are quite willing to send others.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 07:09 AM

In that case why haven't there been far more of them?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 09:06 AM

By the bye, Clint, if, "why does anyone want war?", was your question to your teacher in North Idaho in 1940. Then IMO the answer she gave was an extremely poor one.

GUEST 23 Jan 04 - 02:27 AM's answer to jOhn's question "Greed" doesn't fully fit the bill. National interest is probably a better answer and only then when there is no other alternative.

Going back to the period of Clint's question to his teacher.

In 1939 had Hitler thought that there was any other way of re-uniting East Prussia with Germany he would have opted for that, there wasn't so he fabricated a reason for invading Poland. This was seen as being against the national interests of both France and Britain who delivered their ultimatum to Hitler and, when that was ignored, Britain and France declared war on Germany.

I don't believe, for one minute, that either wanted it, or were, in any way, keen to take that step - but it was the right thing to do.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 09:20 AM

"Sooner or later, it all comes down to money..." (Bruce Springsteen)

Peace

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 01:45 PM

In that case why haven't there been far more of them?

Wars in my lifetime involving the UK: World War II; Palestine; Korea; Malaya; Aden; Cyprus; Suez; Northern Ireland; Falklands; Kuwait; Kosovo; Sierra Leone; Afghanistan; Iraq. I've probably missed out a few at that. And of course, that's not counting the ones where the UK just supplied arms.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 02:49 PM

Teribus said, "National interest is probably a better answer and only then when there is no other alternative."

Oh, puhleeze. Do you actually believe that shit? Look at the present situation in the US -- substitute "corporate interest" for "national interest" and I will take you seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Greg F.
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 06:51 PM

Good God, Y'All!!!

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 23 Jan 04 - 08:57 PM

I thought it was a good answer. And I still do. Question was not why do they go to war, but why do they WANT to. Any nation will go to war in self-defense, but authoritarian governments like having an enemy: another country, a group within the country, or an abstraction.

Please don't tell me Hitler was forced to go to war with Poland. Please don't tell me he did it for any reason other than to gain power. And power is, of course, what my teacher was talking about, though she didn't use the word itself.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 04:04 PM

"War is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means" (Carl von Clausewitz)

In other words, when a government wants something, and war is seen as practical, and as the most effective way of getting that thing, it goes to war.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 08:34 PM

Here's an angle I hadn't thought of. It's at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3419715.stm:
____

Wars 'useful', says US army chief of staff

The head of the United States army has said that the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided a "tremendous focus" for the military.

General Peter Schoomaker said in an interview with AP news agency that the wars had allowed the army to instil its soldiers with a "warrior ethos".
......

General Schoomaker said the attacks on America in September 2001 and subsequent events had given the US army a rare opportunity to change.

"There is a huge silver lining in this cloud," he said.

"War is a tremendous focus... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph."

He said it was no use having an army that did nothing but train.

"There's got to be a certain appetite for what the hell we exist for," he said.
____

There you have it. We need wars so we'll develop that appetite. Good ol' General Peter Schoomaker

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 24 Jan 04 - 11:22 PM

Wars are usually very good for a declining economy. You need to boost production of arms and other expendables. The unemployed suddenly become employable (if for nothing else than as cannon fodder). The Gov't gets to bring in whatever minority is currently not liked and send them to the front lines while claiming it's not being discriminatory, thereby getting rid of alot of the members of the welfare state. Gov't sepnding can be unlimited without too much in the way of questioning (you want our boys to win the war don't you?). Just call me cinical (however that's spelled)

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 12:03 AM

The Bankers & the Diplomats

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 04:20 PM

War is a device for the consolidation for power. The victor is
powerful, the victim is weak. If a war is sucessful, the
instigator is more powerful. If the war is not, the perpetrator
in a power position is not especially held accountable as a
criminal in the case of Johnson and Vietnam. A lone assassin
can be held accountable but a political official is not. In a war, there are many killed as opposed to most ordinary assassins.
War contrived by corrupt administrations is an investment for
the consolidation of power without the liabilities of the
commonplace assassin.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Cluin
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 04:41 PM

War.
War on drugs. War on poverty. War on illiteracy. War on terrorism.
War on whatever "ism" is being trotted out as society's current ubiquitous boogeyman.
War.
Everything's a friggin' war in their speeches.
Governments love the word, the image, the "let's all get out there and pitch in for home and country" rallying cry of it. It wins support, pumps up nationalism, and drums up the "us & them" mentality needed to further their own agendas.
Why do they want to go to war?
It's a good political tactic, if you have the stomach for it.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Norton1
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 09:27 PM

Money and power -

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 09:39 PM

Adrenalin. Especially for the older farts who don't have as much of it.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Metchosin
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 09:59 PM

On the same train of thought Amos, I believe Viagra could truly become the salvation of the world. If they could get it up, maybe the old farts wouldn't send young men to War.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 10:22 PM

Mets!! That's the best idea of heard of in years!! LMAO!

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 04 - 11:48 PM

The politicians are just the hired goons of the real people who are keen to start wars. And those people are the war profiteers (usually corporate industry). So the answer is - governments send men (and women) to war for money.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 01:51 AM

Viagra?   It has stopped me from rolling out of bed----

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: mouldy
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 02:59 AM

Until his untimely death last year, Edwin Starr was booked for my daughter's graduation ball. OK, so he was replaced by the Foundations, and I was lucky enough to hear "Build me up, Buttercup" via her mobile, but I would have given anything to have been able to hear "War" being given the student treatment in the build up to the current Gulf situation, and the period of debate over the legitimacy of the action.

Andrea

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 08:03 AM

Now, philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of War. However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as war, the errors which
proceed from a spirit of benevolence are just the worst. (Clausewitz)

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Teribus
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 11:11 AM

McGrath of Harlow - 23 Jan 04 - 01:45 PM

"Wars in my lifetime involving the UK:"
World War II - Yes we did declare war on Germany
Palestine - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Korea - Yes, we did send troops to support the UN Forces
Malaya - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Aden - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Cyprus - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Suez - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Northern Ireland - No, we didn't declare war on anybody
Falklands - Yes but limited to restoration of the Falklands to British sovereignty
Kuwait - Yes as part of a UN Force
Kosovo - No, we didn't declare war on anyone
Sierra Leone - No, we didn't declare war on anyone
Afghanistan - No, we didn't declare war on anyone
Iraq - Yes limited to removal of Saddam Hussein and Baathist Regime.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 26 Jan 04 - 03:00 PM

Hi Teribus,


"Greed" doesn't fully fit the bill. National interest is probably a better answer and only then when there is no other alternative."

Greed and national interest have become synonymous, the latter idea
as an obfuscation to the former.

National interest is another form of so-called "patriotism, the refuge
of the scoundrel".

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 01:21 AM

A quote from the History Channel the other night on the changing face of war:

At the beginning of the 20th century, 90% of the direct casualties of war were soldiers. By the end of the century, 90% of the casualties were civilian.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Shanghaiceltic
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 03:53 AM

It is the politicians and government leaders that declare war.
It is the poor bloody troops who have to actually do the fighting.

Try Kiplings 'A Dead Statesman'

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?

Or more up to date Richard Heller's

'The Minister has all his notes in place'

The Minister has all his notes in place.
No line of truth has etched his handsome face.
The House is sparse; they have heard it all before.
His expert lies massage away the war.

While Serbian artillery take aim,
Decide which new civilains they should maim,
He fills the Chamber high with empty talk,
And here's another child will never walk.

The Opposition make synthetic rant;
He answers with the Foreign Office cant.
Some random shrapnel takes a boys right eye:
The other one is all he needs to cry.

'Next business', and the Minsister displays
A lapdog urge to here officials praise.
A woman fetching water stops a shell.
He smiles: 'That went rather well.'

I saw active service and like many others after we saw the names of comrades who fell or drowned at sea we questioned the need for the Falklands campaign. It was purely political but when you join up at 16 (as I did ) you never really understood politicians.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 04 - 04:46 AM

SC:

Thanks for a most excellent post.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 30 Jan 04 - 03:19 AM

Shanghaiceltic --

Very well said.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 02:19 AM

I'm not usually too keen on poems, but that ones good.john

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 06:41 AM

Power, baby, power...that and testosterone..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 08:26 AM

Testosterone may have something to do with pub fights (though hardly the ones between women). But very little to do with the decision to make war.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 08:39 AM

Teribus, please define "National Interest". Give examples.

IMO, one of the causes of war is that one country/faction has something that another country/faction wants. It could be land, resources, the Holy Grail (Crusades - ha!), power over others. In short: Greed.

Another cause is that a country/faction is annoyed by another country/faction and chooses to "teach them a lesson". The annoyance can be real or perceived (terrorism, threats etc). Iraq is such a case ostensibly - though many, myself included, would put it in the first category of greed.

Yet another cause is that the country/faction wants to divert attention from internal problems that they find difficult to resolve.

More often than not there is no single cause, but a mix of the above three.

I agree that sometimes you do have to go to war to defend yourself. But make sure - make BLOODY SURE - that this is the only, and true, reason.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Amos
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 09:30 AM

I think it is a foul device and would like to see it replaced by large video games.

A

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Megan L
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:33 AM

Nah nah Amos if everyone who wants a war would please step up with a neat little pile of stones, im sure we can find a wee field somewhere where they can belt blazes out of each other and leave the rest of us alone.

Subject: Lyr Add: AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:44 AM

Today its Anzac Day in Australia, with street marches by soldiers and their supports in memory of the Anzacs who were slaughtered at Suvla Bay in Turkey.

Here is Eric Bogle's song about Anzac Day.

THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA
(Eric Bogle)

Now when I was a young man I carried me pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murry's green basin to the dusty outback,
Well, I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in 1915 my country said, "Son,
It's time you stop rambling, there's work to be done."
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they marched me away to the war.
And the band played Waltzing Matilda,
As the ship pulled away from the quay
And midst all the cheers, flag waving and tears,
We sailed off for Gallipoli

And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water
And of how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he primed himself well.
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shells,
And in five minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us back home to Australia.
(But) And the band played Waltzing Matilda,
As we stopped to bury our slain,
We buried ours, the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.

And those that were left, well we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
Though around me the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me ass over head
And when I awoke in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead.
Never knew there were worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more Waltzing Matilda,
All around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, and maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The legless, the armless, the blind and insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And when our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be
And I thank Christ there was no body waiting for me
To grieve, to mourn and to pity.
But the Band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway,
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.

So now every April I sit on me porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reviving old dreams and past glory,
And the old men march slowly, all bone stiff and sore
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question.
But the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear
Someday, no one will march there at all.


Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda.
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billibong
Who'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:02 PM

Back on the theme of war - why?

the latest is that the US and UN have decided to bring back the Baath party in Iraq. The United States and the United Nations' leading envoy to Iraq have decided to exclude most of the Iraqi politicians whom the US-led coalition has relied on over the past year when they select a new Iraqi government to assume power on June 30, US and UN officials said. Last week the coalition moved to allow former Baath party members and military officers to return to government jobs. (Washington's chosen ones face the axe; By Robin Wright and Walter Pincus in Washington; April 26, 2004, Sydney Morning Herald.

And how did this party maintain its power?

..an all-pervasive order of repression and oppression which is sustained by broad-based discrimination and widespread terror, including summary and arbitrary executions; the widespread routine practice of systematic torture; enforced or involuntary disappearances; suppression of freedom of thought, expression and association; and routinely practised arbitrary arrests and detention. Arbitrary arrest and detention remain widespread throughout the country, with people still being taken directly from their homes. Upon arrest, gross mistreatment and cruel torture occur. Tens of thousands of political killings and disappearances remain unresolved from previous years. As socioeconomic conditions have deteriorated, the regime has punished persons accused of economic crimes, military desertion, and a variety of other charges with torture and cruel and inhuman penalties, including the extensive use of amputation.

...I pity the Iraqi people, to have such a regime returned to them.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 10:44 PM

I don't think they have any choice regarding that, freda. They never should have disbanded the Iraqi army in the first place or put all the Baath Party officials out on the street...for the simple reason that most of the experienced bureaucrats and officers in the country were probably already in the Baath Party.

That was the same situation in Germany when WWII ended, as Patton quickly discovered. The experienced leadership (good, bad, and indifferent) was mostly associated with the Nazi Party, and those people were not all monsters by any means. Most of them were pretty ordinary people who had become part of the prevailing system between 1933 and 1945. Without them, running the country and rebuilding it would be impractical and close to impossible.

That's why the Bush Administration is now "taking a Baath", so to speak, and reversing its earlier anti-Baath policy. It's naive to believe your own propaganda about a hated enemy to the extent that you convince yourself that everyone in the former enemy chain of command is a monster. It only takes a handful of monsters at the top to pervert a system and lead ordinary people astray...note what is happening right now in the USA.

But back to the original question:

"Why Do governments send men to war?"

Well, if it's a war of aggression (which the latest Iraq war certainly was) they usually do it for the following reasons:

A. To secure strategic resources.

B. To secure strategic land positions or outright ownership or control of that land.

C. To secure economic advantage of some kind over over competitor nations.

D. To secure a political advantage at home and abroad, which allows them to drive harder bargains with other nations.

E. To bolster up popularity and patriotism on the home front.

F. To enable their backers to sell more arms and get richer.

G. To distract their public from the domestic problems that really matter.

H. To get revenge for past hurts they imagine they have suffered at the hands of whoever they launch the attack upon.

I. To serve their "God" or their chosen philosophy and ensure that "good" wins out over "evil" (as they define it).

Examine Hitler's record or George W. Bush's or Caesar's or Galtieri's (Argentina) or Thatcher's in regard to most or all of the above motivations for launching a war and it becomes crystal clear. It is to the detriment of their own public and the "enemy" public as well that these wars are launched, but that need hardly be said.

The BIGGEST LIE will be that the war is being fought in "defence of freedom and national security". Almost nothing could be farther from the truth. Killing people is the ultimate violation of their freedom, and greater national insecurity is the result.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 11:02 PM

Human rights violations are associated with particular regimes. These regimes should not be kept in place. Information about the Baath parties human rights violations and methods of control are supported by a range of government and none government organisations.

One of the big problems with interfering in other countries and setting up puppet regimes is the complete lack of political and cultural awareness of the occupying/controlling external power, which leads to critical inhumane decisions to leave sick structures in place. It often comes from a sense of contempt for the country being occupied, a view that they're all corrupt, evil, whatever anyway, so it doesnt matter who you put there.

It does matter.

http://www.why-war.com/

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Apr 04 - 11:52 PM

The US is responsible for the Baathists having been in power in the first place. It was done through a CIA backed coup. I don't think the US can really be trusted to make decisions about who should and who shouldn't be running countries like Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:14 AM

If a bee stings you is it at all sane to get angry and follow that bee to it's hive where you proceed to attack that hive with a tree branch???

I think not.

But that is exactly what we did/are in the midst of doing.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:23 AM

Good analogy, Art.

Freda - I'm not suggesting maintaining the old regime. I'm suggesting NOT depriving ALL of its former soldiers and government workers of a livelihood, doing the normal daily work they were trained to do. Under new and better leadership most of those people would not be harmful, they would be extremely useful to building a new society. The same was true in Germany and Japan after WWII ended. Most people wanted to rebuild and start anew, not repeat the errors of the past.

If a foreign power were to take over the USA in a war and kick every single federal, state, and municipal government worker and trained American soldier and security officer out on the street, you would see a hell of a mess...and probably an intractable war of resistance against the occupying power by those dispossessed people.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: freda underhill
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 12:53 AM

If you have a racial and religious minority in unchecked power for decades, then the greater population misses out on developing those skills and that experience.

a government is only as good as the people in charge. At the time I got my first government job in 1972, women in Oz had to resign from public service once they got married. There was a view that they didnt have the skills, intelligence or experience to let them into the service, and it took lobbying and legislation to change that.

What process will include Kurds, Shiites, Turkmen, into the new government? What process will sift out the perpetrators from the old regime?

Subject: RE: BS: War
From: dianavan
Date: 26 Apr 04 - 01:50 AM

Freda -   "... the US and UN have decided to bring back the Baath party in Iraq."

Who will control the military? Seems that is the sticky point.

It also seems that the U.S. is asking the U.N. for an awful lot, considering they have admitted that it is only going to get worse. And yet they have the audacity to want all foreign troops under their command and they want to deny the authority of the U.N. when it comes to weapons inspections.

Seems that the U.S. just doesn't understand that it may have to take a slightly less dominant role in Iraq. Do they really think foreign troops will accept this? Its not as if the U.S. has a great track record. ...and does anybody trust Bush anymore?