It occurs to me ,
From the first battle over a watering hole up to the vulgar machine guns of the trench, to the incomprehensible ICBM, the art of war has been transformed from a property ritual for which the warrior might have some clear vested interest in the outcome to an industrial act of informed suicide.
From the roaring stalemate of mighty armies arrayed along frontlines to the brute domination of Genocide, conflicts of arms are the failure of reason and the triumph of might. What the bureaucrat might call `politics by other means' is curiously the moment the politician exits the stage and permits the pawn to bear the brunt of the policy. Carpet bombing in the Second World War, targeting civilians directly, ended the age of the non-combatant, and engaged the era of Total War, offering the whole world's people to the whim of those few for whom war remains an option, and to makers of weapons to whom our masters are enthrall.
Each and every conflict participant dreams up noble banners to convince its people to slaughter some stranger-adversary; Bugle calls and false statements of heroism inoculate the senses from the stark panic and ruthless penetration that is War, Propaganda permits the unthinkable and deems the Enemy Other expendable and somehow less human, and too often , unholy.
Those championing war are by default frauds or dupes, either complicit in the Crime or ignorant of the full meaning of that which they promote. Regardless the motivation or the excuse making, it is become wholly vestigial among the permissible in the era of total annihilation. So long as war remains, possibly the last remaining and present evidence of our primitive ancestry, so is prohibited the emancipation of everyone everywhere from a voluntary destiny of oblivion.
Note: I've visited and commented at Kos since 2003 and this is my first Diary. I didn't attempt to address any particular issue of the day, but rather offer some thoughts about The Issue plaguing my mind, and thought for my first ever entry, I'd begin by expressing something fundamental, as plainly as I see it. I await the hoards telling me why I'm wrong, but I hope to stimulate further thought and discussion about the subject...