Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Is war a necessary evil?


Pastorius note: BUMPED TO THE TOP - I think Christine has written a particularly important post here, in that it synthesizes the holistic and Judeo-Christian views of the world.


Since the beginning of time, there have been wars. Many small and a few very large.

I believe that wars play a very necessary part in our human lives. That without wars, we would have not existed this long on earth.

The best analogy is the forest fire. Ever since God planted the first trees, there have been forest fires. Not caused by man, but by nature. Fire plays an intrical part in the growth and development of the forest. Trees, such as the Banksia plant in Australia and the Giant Sequoia Tree only open once they have been through a fire.

Fires thin out the area around a tree and the fertile ash that is left after a fire produce optimal conditions for germination and growth. Fire also destroys competitors as well as pest and any diseased wood.

So in reality, a forest fire can have great benefits, in the long run. Who knows what the trigger is, what amount of "pressure" needs to build up. But all of the elements are there.

Human beings are blessed with the ability to feel, think, love and hate. These feelings when kept in check create a balance. But, on this globe called earth we have billions of these thinking, feeling, hating and loving beings. There will always be bickering and fighting going on. That is human nature, our differences revealed. A low roar, a constant hum.

Over time though, the low roar starts to get louder. Slowly, slowly, it rises. Suddenly, like in the corner of a bar, someone "crosses the line". You have a war. When the tavern explodes in chaos , you have a World War.

The pressure builds up so high, it explodes. This explosion, is the necessary evil. Like the forest fire. All of the necessary elements have come together, the valve needs to be cleared.

As after WWII, the world calms down. There is a lull. An almost "sleepy" faze, where everyone is warn out. The built up pressure is gone.

It has been over 60 years since WWII. We went through the lull, the low hum played out and the roaring has been getting louder and louder.

Right now, you don't need to strain to here the roar. It's like you could actually see an earthquake coming.

Over there, do you see the ripple heading straight for you?

Get ready for the JOLT.

8 comments:

midnight rider said...

EXCELLENT and BRAVO! Terrific post.

Wars, though ugly and painful, are not only necessary they are unavoidable.

And I'm sure I'll be taken to task for saying this but if we would let the smaller wars playout properly the great conflagrations would be fewer.

Just like the misguided efforts of the forest service all those years of stomping out brush fires. The debris builds up instead of buring off and then suddenly BOOM catastrophic burn.

Every real earthy-crunchy knows that. You know, the ones with the shotgun racks in their pickups, not the tofu in their backpacks.

Christine said...

And I'm sure I'll be taken to task for saying this but if we would let the smaller wars playout properly the great conflagrations would be fewer.

I definitely agree with you. Allowing the pressure to be relieved in small bursts, prevents the big explosion.

midnight rider said...

Right. If Israel had been allowed to eliminate Hezbollah or Hamas the first time around they would not be threatened by them now. Had we done something about Iran 4 years ago we would not be waiting for them to get a nuke before we can sit down to talks.

Epaminondas said...

Right on it.
Excellent Christine

As long as human nature is nature, there will be wars.

Failure to recognize objective reality has penalties.

Unfortunately, war, revolutions are sometimes the agents of beneficial change.

Cessation of war and revolutions means we stop right where we are.

Until we change human nature. Someone please call Mr. Gore, I have a REAL project for him.

Just Cause said...

Couldn't agree more. I have been obsessed about war from a very early age and have a reputation for being a warmonger but I maintain it's because people truly don't understand, or try to ignore the basic elements of human nature. That is, we are animals.

When people say that religion has been the cause of so many wars and if we didn't have religion we wouldn't have wars I have to take them to task. The core of all conflict is disagreement over something, anything. If we hadn't have fought wars over religion it would have been about something else, land, the colour of the flag, who has the right to lead the people. I think Churchill said it best when he said that war is the natural state of man and if you think about it, it is.

We are programmed to fight, after all, it's what's kept the human race alive and at the top of the food chain, survival of the fittest.

Yes to an extent we have been civilised but our fighting instinct is only just beneath the surface and like others have said, if we don't let it out every now and then, the pressure builds and eventually it blows.

Just as tribes through history would wage war on other tribes if they were infringing on their territory or had wronged them in some way, today we see ideological tribes and the conflict is coming and it's going to shock so many people at how fast we can descend into war.

If this happens what people will have to realise, and quickly, is exactly how wars are won because as we saw in the whining and moaning over Israel/Gaza conflict over proportionality. To win a war you have to have absolute clarity of purpose from the general to the grunts, they all need to know what the objective is. And then you have to apply maximum effort and violence into achieving the objective as quickly as possible. This is best highlighted by the initial Blitzkreig tactics of the Nazis - they were unstoppable. Unfortunately for them (but lucky for us) as the war drew on, Hitlers orders started to be too detailed in what was to be achieved and how with no mention of what the bigger picture was thus soldiers got bogged down because they couldn't improvise effectively when they ran into problems. This was a crucial flaw in Hitlers approach and one big reason why the allies got the upper hand.

I digress, if Israel had have used maximum force in Gaza it would have taken a week tops to bring Hamas to their knees. They were getting flamed in the press regardless so why didn't they just turn up the heat to get maximum military advantage? Who knows. If it was me in charge I would have warned them that one more rocket attack would result in Gaza being bulldozed into the Mediterranean. 10 days would have been given for safe passage for anyone wanting to flee to the West Bank or any other Arab nation that would have them (haha) and then it's game on.

If war comes around and our leaders are too concerned over looking bad or disproportionate then we're all fucked! Either way, I'll die fighting before I submit to Islam or Communism.

Apologies for the biblical response, war is my religion :-)

Pastorius said...

This really is an amazing post, because it sees the Earth as an organic thing (which is usually the mark of a Pagan/New Age view of the world), and yet, at the same time, you recognize that humans have this unique ability to love, hate, fear, etc. (which is the mark of a Judeo-Christian view of the world), and you somehow synthesized the two views.

Brilliant.

christian soldier said...

If our Best had been 'allowed' finish the job -Desert Storm-
we would not be over there now..
Excellent post...
C-CS

Christine said...

I have lived my life with the belief that everything happens for a reason. No pain, no gain, I guess you could say.

What on the surface appears to be negative or bad, can in reality be a blessing in disguise. People these days feel they need to be in absolute control of every little thing in life. If we go back to the way things were and allow processes to take their natural course, everything will work out in the end.

God has his plans. We just need to let them play out. No matter how many times we as people have tried to prevent war, it hasn't been successful. It only delays it and tends to make them worse.

That should tell us something.

War truly is a necessary evil.