War is CERTAINLY not about the moral high ground. It's only about moeny and power.
Wanna know how I know that?
I know that because men can destroy families by either raping, molesting, or beating the people in them and there's no war cry from ANY political party about getting serious enough to stop them. I know that because predators keep getting caught, put in jail for a couple of months, and let out again to reoffend. I know that because, as a person with a calculator, I can see that housing an inmate isn't as profitable as bombing the shit out of a place that has coveted natural resources to exploit.
There's no multi-billion dollar budget for the tools necessary to stop domestic violence. There isn't an army of highly trained professionals who can take prisoners without notice, hold them indefinitely, and refuse them access to lawyers in the interest of "security." But when it comes to other forms of terror.. oh let's see which kinds fit ... you know, the kinds where the terrorists live in an oil rich nation or have links to a place with access to a pivotal port... THOSE types of terror are met with the force of a million suns. No amount of money is too high. No number of lives too dear. No sacrifice will go unmade in the name of winning against the brutal 'enemy.'
When it comes to the terror women and children experience daily, however, there seems to be a dearth of resources. The judicial system slaps most of these offenders on the wrist. Legislators never bring the issue up. Budgets for counselling, shelters and legal aid keep getting slashed. I ask you to think about it this for a minute. Pretend you've never heard of spousal homicide or child rape before. Pretend it's all new to you. Now ask yourself "is that terror?" "Would I be terrified in that situation? Should there not be some sort of redress for the fact that this has been going on for more than two thousand years to innocent civilians - against our laws and morals - without real remedy?"
Two Israeli soldiers (SOLDIERS, mind you) are quote unquote kidnapped.. (I say quote unquote because hey, I kinda thought that when you are a soldier and you get fucking CAUGHT by the ENEMY that we had a different word for that than 'kidnapped...') but I digress... these two soldiers are taken prisoner by the enemy and what is the response? Troops mass along the border. Bombs are dropped killing civilians. People by the tens of thousands must be evacuated from the country. Millions of dollars in equipment and ammunition are called into play INSTANTLY. The international community freaks out completely and people are wondering if this will be the beginning of a nuclear war.
Why is this so when NOTHING resembling an official response happens when two teenaged girls are stalked by internet predators, or two young boys are "groomed" into sexual conduct with men three times their age.. or two wives are beaten to death inside their own bedrooms? What is the BIG DIFFERENCE if it isn't money and power?
Oh the state can't go meddling around in the bedrooms of the nation. They can't make safe the streets or bar rooms or dormitories or locker rooms. The state can't declare a war on that sort of thing because after all there is no defined enemy group. Right? The state has no right to step in when one of its own is mauled and molested - deformed from rape or broken by a baseball bat. They would be overstepping some sort of line, I suppose. It's just one person (at a time, maybe) and it's not a political act. Is that it? Is that the default pattern subconscious response that lets us accept that 2 goddamned adult soldiers are more important than 2 children who have no where to run?
I think it is. I think we've been programmed so long to believe that somehow domestic violence and violence against women and children is just "something that will always be with us" that we've successfully tuned it out. We don't force ourselves to compare the 2500 dead at the World Trade Center with the thousands dead every year at the hands of abusive fathers and spouses (or ex spouses, or complete strangers, or baseball coaches, or priests, etc.) But there IS a solid comparison to be made.
I want tanks and guns and soldiers and policy aimed right at the perpetrators of the oldest and most isidious type of terrorism known to mankind.
But I won't get them.
Why not? Because women and children don't make enough of a profit. Because women and children can't turn around and owe the government a solid when the deal is done. Because women and children have no borders. No voting block. No access to international legislative negotiations. No oil. No nukes.
If only breast milk were black gold and the innocence of children was the balance of power. THEN we'd see some action.
Until then, it's war for profit and profit from war. But no matter how many cities we bomb or how much oil we grab, terror will never end. It will never be over for the victims of heartless, violent, abusive assholes who can rest assured that their government cares even less about women and children than they do. After all - what would you be thinking right now if the police just left your house with you and your bleeding wife inside, telling you "don't do it again?" What would you be thinking is most important when you turned on the TV and saw 50,000 Lebanese being evacuated, explosions devastating citites, and the international community on high-alert all because of two soldiers who knew the risks of their line of work before they BECAME soldiers and happened to be unlucky enough to have been taken prisoner?
I think you'd know in your bones that no one cares about your wife and kids. I think you'd be pretty smug with your sore knuckles and your sense of superiority intact.
And if you the female of the twosome you'd likely be thinking, "I am alone. Can I really be my own warrior? I can't believe what a shit army I've got - no troops, no equipment, no budget, no allies. It's do or die, because I'm here in the jungle staring down the enemy and my last best hope just choppered out of here."
And the sad fact of the matter is that according to the powers that be... you'd both be right.