War isn't always a bad thing
I know. Shocking title, huh? It’s true though.
I only bring this up because every year, at some time, I find myself in a classroom participating in a discussion on World War One.
It’s usually after reading some anti-war novel. This time we were supposed to read Henri Barbusse's Under Fire – and as usual, the class is expected to uniformly walk away with one theme that all of our professors expect us to imbed deep into our consciousness: War is bad. No matter what.
War is always mindless and uncivilized. War is described as the lowest state of being. And all of this is essentially true, if only it weren’t packaged in such misleadingly simple terms.
Professors pick World War One as a representative for all wars because of how unique it was. The battle lines remained essentially unchanged for 4 full years. There was no progress in the war. People died and that was it. Nothing was accomplished – no tyrannies were gloriously defeated and the deaths of most French and German soldiers were so completely in vain.
The war’s deeply horrific nature is necessary for professors to indoctrinate their students to believe that all war is bad. Nothing good can come from war, because World War One was so bad, they say. Even if you’re fighting in self defense or pre-emptively eliminating a threat, war can never be good. Even when a bunch of Fascist Islamic militants declare war on western society, even then, war serves no purpose. It would be more honourable, apparently, to suffer the consequences of appeasement than to invade, defeat and depose an outlaw regime. It would be more righteous to turn a blind eye to enemies that hope for destruction to befall your nation than it would be to stand up to them.
Why? Just because World War One was so bad? That might sound like a rhetorical question, but I’m being sincere. I’ve never actually understood the left’s total and complete opposition to all forms of armed conflict, particularly when they oppose it in a situation of self defense. Is someone like Bush always trying to steal someone’s oil or is there a deeper reason? Is the sovereignty of someone like Saddam or Kim Jong Il really that sacred? And in many (but not all) cases, is democracy really not that much better than “other forms of government”?
War is bad thing most of the time. Not always though - moral and practical justifications or the lack thereof (self defense, pre-emption, future peace, etc.) are what really define it.
I only bring this up because every year, at some time, I find myself in a classroom participating in a discussion on World War One.
It’s usually after reading some anti-war novel. This time we were supposed to read Henri Barbusse's Under Fire – and as usual, the class is expected to uniformly walk away with one theme that all of our professors expect us to imbed deep into our consciousness: War is bad. No matter what.
War is always mindless and uncivilized. War is described as the lowest state of being. And all of this is essentially true, if only it weren’t packaged in such misleadingly simple terms.
Professors pick World War One as a representative for all wars because of how unique it was. The battle lines remained essentially unchanged for 4 full years. There was no progress in the war. People died and that was it. Nothing was accomplished – no tyrannies were gloriously defeated and the deaths of most French and German soldiers were so completely in vain.
The war’s deeply horrific nature is necessary for professors to indoctrinate their students to believe that all war is bad. Nothing good can come from war, because World War One was so bad, they say. Even if you’re fighting in self defense or pre-emptively eliminating a threat, war can never be good. Even when a bunch of Fascist Islamic militants declare war on western society, even then, war serves no purpose. It would be more honourable, apparently, to suffer the consequences of appeasement than to invade, defeat and depose an outlaw regime. It would be more righteous to turn a blind eye to enemies that hope for destruction to befall your nation than it would be to stand up to them.
Why? Just because World War One was so bad? That might sound like a rhetorical question, but I’m being sincere. I’ve never actually understood the left’s total and complete opposition to all forms of armed conflict, particularly when they oppose it in a situation of self defense. Is someone like Bush always trying to steal someone’s oil or is there a deeper reason? Is the sovereignty of someone like Saddam or Kim Jong Il really that sacred? And in many (but not all) cases, is democracy really not that much better than “other forms of government”?
War is bad thing most of the time. Not always though - moral and practical justifications or the lack thereof (self defense, pre-emption, future peace, etc.) are what really define it.
posted by Japnaam Singh at
12:06 AM
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