Will there ever come a seismic shift in the way we understand and accept war- its seeming inevitability, that it’s just something humans do? People in high places making life and death decisions for others, jeopardizing their continued existence as living and breathing entities?
And often enough over some natural resource, or pride, or “national interests.” Or because there seems to be an endless queue of megalomaniacs possessing some twisted vision of world domination. Or because war is good for the economy.
Will there ever come a time when people just say, “Hell, no. No more of this !?” No more flimsy, seductive appeals to duty and patriotism. No more bogeymen or WMD. No more having to do some suit’s dirty work. Let the oil sheiks and kings and chairpersons of the board and presidents fight it out.
The adults in the room turn out to be the teens and twenty-somethings who end up maimed and scarred or coming home in a casket, proud to the end of having done their duty. I guess there will always be the next despot, so we will continue to send the young, strong, and cocky ones off to fight our battles. Because they are, somehow, expendable.
Such a profound waste. It’s a ghastly thing that we can deal so blithely in human lives.
3 Cents' 