I’m watching American Experience:
Modern industrial warfare, and all its horrors. Popular heroes of battle. The flu. The treaty of Versailles, planting the seeds of another paroxysm of industrial war. And then racial violence driven by… fear that returning veteran Negros would be a conduit for communism into American society. Wilson’s reclusion, and his destruction of the treaty he had worked for, because of his hatred for HC Lodge. What if the US had been in the League of Nations, when Mussolini and Hitler had arisen?
What is it all for? What is a “just war”?
There are no just wars. Humanity, and humanity’s progress, are destroyed so men in power can strut and talk about ideals. That is in all wars, regardless.
If we need to fight a war, OK, fight a war. But don’t pretend it is a good thing. Don’t make believe the destruction and the loss of human culture and potential is in any way acceptable. It isn’t.
Let’s have done with trying to say any wars are moral, or good, or just. They’re not. Stop glorifying them. Even for good causes, they are a cause for shame.
Maybe if they are properly (de)valued, wars can finally be relegated to the last resort. Maybe then we can start thinking far enough ahead to see them coming, and ante up for a future we can be proud of.
georgewiman 