Today is the day that, every year without fail, an awful lot of people, particularly those of a political bent, will have an awful lot to say about the millions of millions and millions of people who’ve died fighting wars. Wars that were largely caused by an awful lot of people, particularly those of a political bent, having an awful lot to say that they could have perhaps kept to themselves.
Two minutes silence should be seen as just the starting point for half the people I listen to each day. I’d tell them so, but instead I set a good example and keep the comment to myself.
As a card-carrying Trappist, I am always silent. On some matters. I guess that makes me a Transactional Trappist.
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I’ve always spoke against war.
I worry too much about my loved ones in harm’s way to even be a little bit rational about the reasons I’m given for any given war. As far as US wars, the revolution, the civil and WW2 are the only wars that we as a nation have fought that I think were unavoidable and needed fought. There has not been one in my 65 years as a US citizen that could not have been avoided and that we as a nation would have been better off sitting out.
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All wars are potentially avoidable. And yet. Arguably, the Falklands, Gulf I and the initial Afghanistan campaign all fit under both the ‘could have been avoided’ and ‘morally justifiable’ umbrellas. Smaller campaigns that the UK forces have involved themselves in have been of noble intent. It’s a complex world.
But the biggest conflicts of my lifetime, Iraq and 9/10 of Afghanistan, were pointless exercises in ego and unecessary expenditure of blood and money,
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” I mean it , Yossarian. This is not World War One. You must never forget that we’re at war with aggressors who would not let ether one of us live if they won. ”
Heller set a high bar in Catch 22.
I’ve never had one qualm about dropping atomics on Japan-they got off easy.
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I find arguments against Hiroshima and Nagasaki usually rely on what could only politely call misinformation.
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