wHy wAR IS sTUPiD

THC

Speaking w/ my Grandfather a little while back (who fought for the U.S. in WW II, and won a purple heart when he fought in the battle of Iwo Jima), he said...its rather silly. He said...look...I was fighting the Japs and wanted them dead. Now, we are allies w/ them...our countries are friends. ALL That....all those deaths....and 50 years later...our countries are friends now...because they have similar interests.

-Just looking at the story today about how the U.S. said we would "protect" Japan if North Korea did anything....really made me think of what my Grandpa said.

all these nationalistic wars are for nothing! allegiances change....interests are shifted....and in the end....nothing is left but pain, death, and a feeling that we could and should have somehow prevented these tragedies called "WAR".

Jackhammer

Tell that to Junior.

THC

Jackhammer wrote:

Tell that to Junior.

lol...

mainly what i am saying though is that...you look at for example..the countries that fought in WW I, WW II....then look at today...hell...half of these countries who wanted eachother dead, only 50 years ago are now fighting together, or are allies. Germany is now a good guy....Japan and U.S. are buddies....

i'm sure that in 50 years from now...the U.S. and Iraq are great buddies....
we'll probably be at war w/ Germany AGAIN....
we'll be back to hating Japan....

Its just a cycle of Bullshit...and in the end...the young and in most cases...the poor are dead in the streets...and you're country will again be convincing you who you should hate now.....

Jackhammer

you actually believed that war was about good guys vs bad guys, don't you?

Well sadly it never was that way. All conflict, minor or major, was always about dominance. For resources, ideologies or whatever other excuses.

But people never go to war simply because there are bad guys and good guys.

And frankly, if it was that way, do you think the US gov would have supported all those dictators since 50 years?

THC

Jackhammer wrote:

you actually believed that war was about good guys vs bad guys, don't you?

Well sadly it never was that way. All conflict, minor or major, was always about dominance. For resources, ideologies or whatever other excuses.

But people never go to war simply because there are bad guys and good guys.

And frankly, if it was that way, do you think the US gov would have supported all those dictators since 50 years?

good post....

I think though that EVERY WAR is always SOLD as Good vs. Bad. Each and every time....i think its Packaged nice and neat as Good vs. Evil. Bad vs. Good...etc. You see the commercials for the military and it makes you believe you are joining the side of Good. And i'm sure its the SAME EXACT WAY in every country.

For the most part as a human race though...we seem to have bought into this theory of war. of bad vs. good. i think until we realize what you are saying here...that it is never really that way...and in reality it is much more about interests at the time...we'll never break the un-ending cycle of war.

jeffbr

So you and your Grandpa believe that we shouldn't have defended ourselves from Japan's attack? We'd have become fast friends with Japan anyway?

And because we're allied with Germany now we shouldn't have gone into Europe in the 1940's?

Somebody seems to be ingoring history. Actions and/or inactions have consequences. We are where we are because of events of the past.

I'm not saying every war is good or every war is bad. But I am saying that to think that we shouldn't have gone to war then because we're friends now doesn't make any logical sense.

THC

jeffbr wrote:

So you and your Grandpa believe that we shouldn't have defended ourselves from Japan's attack? We'd have become fast friends with Japan anyway?

And because we're allied with Germany now we shouldn't have gone into Europe in the 1940's?

Somebody seems to be ingoring history. Actions and/or inactions have consequences. We are where we are because of events of the past.

I'm not saying every war is good or every war is bad. But I am saying that to think that we shouldn't have gone to war then because we're friends now doesn't make any logical sense.

that's really not what i was saying at all.
i think my grandpa's point was that, political inklings come and go...no sense killing over them. he pointed out to me the irony that we are now friends w/ japan, so soon after ww2. (i think his and my point are that gov'ts send people off to kill for them, and their current wants/positions...but in the end it is just humans killing humans un-neccesarily).

sponger

THC wrote:

that's really not what i was saying at all.
i think my grandpa's point was that, political inklings come and go...no sense killing over them. he pointed out to me the irony that we are now friends w/ japan, so soon after ww2. (i think his and my point are that gov'ts send people off to kill for them, and their current wants/positions...but in the end it is just humans killing humans un-neccesarily).

We're friends with japan because they unconditionally surrendered. If they had agreed to do things our way from the beginning, war would have been avoided.

The reason why it strikes your grandpa as being so ironic is because he used to think of the japanese as "japs". In other words, he couldn't see them as being real people. He saw them as the enemy -people to be feared and hated. And, yeah, it's ironic to be cool with someone you used to want to tear to pieces.

But, our government, the people who sent your grandpa to war, wasn't particularly interested in hating the japanese. They only wanted to impose their will on the japanese. It's really an objective point of view from a certain standpoint. The government didn't order the deaths of japanese because it hated the japanese. It just wanted what it ended up getting after winning the war: compliance.

So, I have to disagree with you when you say that wars are stupid because the possibility of friendship after the war. This is because that friendship would not have been possible without the war.

We started fighting with the japanese because they bombed pearl harbor. Pearl harbor was bombed because of the embargo. The embargo happened because the US felt strongly against japanese foreign policy. So, without the war, we'd still be at the embargo stage with both sides still really pissed off at each other. So, the war was kind of like a friendship inducer.

Another example is the soviets. We didn't directly go to war with the soviets, but we were in a cold war. So, people are like well why was the cold war ever even necessary if we're all cool now? Well, the answer to that is that we're cool with the soviets because communism basically fell. At least that's what I heard. I keep hearing that communism fell, but I still think of the soviets as communists. And with the fall of communism came the notion that the west won the cold war.

Another example is the US and the brits. We're all cool with the brits now. We let them hang out on our PJ forum and stuff. We used to be at war way back in the 1700's or something. So why was that war even necessary if we're all friends now? Well, the answer to that is that if the war didn't happen, certain groups within America would have turned into an equivalent of the IRA. George Washington would probably have been the leader of the American IRA. We'd still be fighting to this extent.

Puck78

sponger wrote:

We're friends with japan because they unconditionally surrendered. If they had agreed to do things our way from the beginning, war would have been avoided.

sadly at the beginning japan couldn't have done things in "your" way for a simple reason: there were no talks in which the US were seriously involved, at the beginning.

My grandfather went to fight in Russia. As a lot of other people, poverty induced him to join the army. Now that he knows what's war, he's a pacifist

sponger

Puck78 wrote:

sadly at the beginning japan couldn't have done things in "your" way for a simple reason: there were no talks in which the US were seriously involved, at the beginning.

There were talks. We were speaking the language known as embargo.