How Civilized Are We? -- War

War -- the bane of civilization

Man can neither live with nor without each other. We are our best friends and worst enemies. And we can never live together in peace and harmony for long. It's got to be cycles of war and peace, peace and war. Always. It's in our blood, our DNA, in our animal instincts and in our savage impulses. And we can hardly do much about it.

We learn to be two-faced. We engage in wars while at the same time praising peace. We sing hosannas on the incalculable value of life and then march off our youth to war. We set aside big war chests with tax-payers' money, denying much-needed funds for the welfare of the people.

We keep thousands -- and even over a million -- of men and women under arms and teach them how to kill people. We make bigger, better and deadlier weapons, especially those of mass destruction, to kill and maim the greatest number of our enemies and lay waste to their lands.

We show off our spanking new and shiny weapons to impress our friends and intimidate our prospective foes, and even make a money-spinning business out of it. And we talk of using robot armies in the not too distant future.

We drop bombs from thousands of feet up in the sky, we launch missiles from distant seas, and we send killer drones from the safety and comfort of our war rooms hundreds or thousands of miles away from ground zero.

Like unconscionable vandals, we turn cities and homes -- even schools and hospitals -- into rubble and skeletons, rain bombs and bullets not only on armed enemies but also on innocent civilians. Most shocking and heartrending of all, we kill, maim, inflict pain and suffering upon innocent little children.  

Overnight, wives turn into widows, children become orphans, and families join lines of  homeless refugees. People get so used to burying the mangled bodies of the dead almost every day that they suffer from dry eyes and numbness even to the loss of their loved ones. Even peace comes at a price -- the peace of a cemetery.

Amidst all the lightning and thunder of war, a cool, silent and impersonal spectator with an insatiable appetite for dead bodies keeps busy, doing its dirty job as the toll mounts higher and higher. Finally, it's peace again -- the peace of the cemetery.

So can we stop wars? Dream on!

*

He who joyfully marches to music rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once.
-- Albert Einstein

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
-- John F. Kennedy

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.
-- Joseph Stalin

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. Joseph Stalin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html

One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. Joseph Stalin
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joseph_stalin.html

You can nuke people, but you can't nuke wars! (Me)

Is war an interrupted peace, or is peace an interrupted war? (Me)

The path to peace is often lined with dead bodies. (Me)

Truth is the first casualty in war -- just as in politics and religion.