The year is about to end so I'll do some bashing

[Pekka]

But not mindless bashing, more like wondering.

Why is it, that the US is in war at all times? Has there ever been a period when it wasn't doing war somewhere?

Even if there is no active fighting going on, there's always war on drugs, war on.. what ever. Constant fighting. A good sign is that it's a very natural question to ask: who should we fight next? Or who's next? Isn't that kind of.. active seeking for war, rather than the passive kind?

When is the US going to declare peace on something? Or even better, declare a war on things that are bad, but you can't have a bad guy in it? As in war on poverty, war on hunger? Why not? Seems to me when there's war included, it gets efficient.

The last actually succesful operation was in Germany and Japan, those turned out well, so how about taking a break, since clearly folks are getting kind of blinded by the speed?

Can you imagine a situation, where you wouldn't have any war news, nothing. Sure, beef, but no actual 'we are going to be fighting soon' or 'we are fighting now'? Kind of lets you have time for other stuff as well.

So there's my critique of the US for the year 2006. It's really about the war attitude than anything else. Attempts to categorize me as anti-American or terrorist symphatizer or what ever is pretty useless.

[Jon Miller]

I have heard tha we have been on warfooting since the 1930s...

JM

[Pekka]

Right.. so you need to wonder why is that, and not settle for 'well, superpower needs to.. always a target.. bad places out there...'.

Because on the long run, it just can't be profitable. Think about it.. constant war on someone, well that will piss off so many people around the world, that at the end, it just won't work out anymore.

So my advice is to choose the battles more, and not just going when there's an opportunity.

Of course there are places where miltiary force coudl be used in generally accepted ways.. humanitarian issues.. like places in Africa and stuff. So that's not the point, there could be forever raging wars, and they could be 'all good'. But those can't be done either, it costs so much to just 'here's a favour'. And you'd get nothing in return. That's why no one else is there either. Everybody staying out.

[Jon Miller]

And I wasd going to say something about Bishop bashing...

JM

[Pekka]

So do note, that this is not 'iraq bad' or what ever, this is general wondering of being in state of war at all times. A state, where 'who's next' is a normal question, and everyone has an answer (and different one too).

[Pekka]

Because, the war is supposed to be a state that is not 'normal state', even though it is natural to humans, doing war.

So, when you are always at war, then you really never have peace, so the state of war becomes the normal.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Pekka
So, when you are always at war, then you really never have peace

Aha! I always suspected as much! Good to have my suspicions confirmed.

[Barnabas]

I think they go to war rarely, what they cant seem to do, is going 3 years without bombing a country.
But it is not the same as going to war.

[Jon Miller]

The explosions are so beautiful

JM

[Barnabas]

Saddam was very bombable, because of the no fly zone and all that stuff, I remember there were airstrikes very often

[Pekka]

And of course, you can always start to .. give good reasons for past wars, excluding little conflicts, they don't even count.

So the mental note is more on the idea of non-stop war. And since it is not really challenged as an idea, a conclusion that people really do like war is difficult to avoid. People really like war. People don't like innceont people getting killed, that's not it. But people like the idea of kicking ass, especially when it doesn't include themselves risking their lives for it, but let the pros do the risking part.

I think if we are able to admit this to ourselves, it doesn't make us any worse, it just enables us to analyze things accurately. Of course this is not the case with all people, but many people do think war is pretty damn cool.

[SlowwHand]

From now on how about this? People get in a bind, call Ethiopia, not the USA.
Pretty good idea, huh?

[Pekka]

And furthermore, of course war is pretty damn cool, if you exclude the dying people who were good people.

You get all cool equipment, you get a game of statistics, you get all kinds of news and programs, excitement, wins, losses... you get a reason to follow a big event. An event doesn't even have to be really that great for it to be popular. As long as it's a big event, it's interesting. I don't care if it's the worlds largest grass growing competition, if it has a million participants in it, lots of coverage, it's ****ing interesting, that's right, it is.

So war is naturally interesting. Plus, it appeals to ... the primitive urges of people, and in some ways it's quite pure, it's raw, so it has the attributes of truth in it. So, even if it's getting to be like a sporting event, it's still pretty damn cool if you exclude the good people getting killed and the destruction part of it.

And YES, it is possible to do that. In fact, most people rather do that. Why would you not do that? If you want to be all worried and stuff, there's plenty of stuff to be worried. Watch the news, even the non-war news are enough to make you not sleep for a year. Why would a small scale war be that big of a deal in this chaos? In fact it shouldn't be, so is it OK to enjoy some good old war on the side? Why not?

[Pekka]

Sloww, that's not what the debate is about though. And that argument is not worth debating over now, because it's highly arguable so.. and that would be a different kind of a debate anywa. That woudl be 'the role of the US as world police' or something like that. Different story, different debate, and I'm not personally interested in it anyway...

[SlowwHand]

In just looking at the USA references that were your main points, it wasn't easy to tell. So, ok. Now I know.