This must have been a good 30 years ago. My Dad and I were standing at the foot of this great painting. It was a battle scene. Judging from the uniforms, they were Persian soldiers on horse backs charging Indian soldiers on the backs of elephants. The host, my Dad's friend, explained that it was one of Nader Shah's wars, where he brought a very famous diamond back to Persia. He mentioned what the battle was and the diamond, I don't remember now.
My Dad, the ever sarcastic critic he always was, said rather quickly, "Yeah, where is that jakesh Nader Shah himself?" "He's probably at the palace drinking wine and humping women". Our host pointed out, rather promptly while actually pointing to a figure in the painting, that "no, here is Nader Shah himself, he was always at all of his battles". Sure enough, the boy was on a white horse, way in front of the charge, sword drawn and his mustache flinging in the air.
I have never forgotten that. I guess there was a time when leaders, kings or generals, were in front, side by side, and in the trenches with their soldiers. Sure, they got the better horses, finer fire arms, had protection, got a tent with hot food, but they were there. They smelt the gun powder, saw the blood and were killed at times.
Compare that with today's wars. Our leaders have a suit on, live in a mansion, have no idea how to fight and the only time they ever used a gun was in open range, at some pheasants who didn't shoot back. They are ordering "CH.... AAAAA... RRRRR...GGGE", when the only charge they have ever done was on dady's credit card.
Well, at least we can take comfort in the fact that we have fought wars for stupid reasons for the most part, anyway. So, what's another one?
A scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 has stuck with me. Michael Moore, the maker of the film, went and stood in the front of the house or senate in DC and with a signing sheet asked many of our elected representatives if they would sign their sons/daughters to go to war in Iraq. One said sure, he would. The rest, even though they voted for the war in Iraq, would sign. I found that to be very strange even in a country where "Hypocrisy" rules.
I have learned one thing that there will be wars, soldiers have to fight the wars, and soldiers die in wars, that cannot be changed. Despite millions of years of evolution, humans will fight. Back in the cave-man age, they got the other cave dwellers involved then they evolved in getting other tribes involved, regions, villages, countries....and I don't know when and where it would end, if ever.
Right in the midst of these thoughts, I am quite sure that I understand defending one's home land, village, or cave, in the event of an attack. What I don't understand and cannot fathom is packing up, flying some 10,000 miles to go fight in a country that had not done anything to me. All because one man said these people have weapons that may hurt us. I don't think even US has weapons that reach Iraq. But the Iraqi government had WMDs that they were going to load on invisible ships, park at New York Harbor and shoot at will!
And even after a couple of years of being there, where it was proven that there are no weapons, destroy the country and it's infrastructure, capture their leader and the other 51 playing cards, find out there were no intelligence and your leader lied to you, keep going back for second and third tour of duty... when do the big blood vessels in your neck going to open up, send blood to your brain to resume activity and decide for yourself that I as a soldier, should not be fighting this war any more?
That I don't understand. And for all of you who will write me and say that they attacked us first, remember, November of 1989 we attacked Iraq. This, when we were french kissing Saddam ever since we helped him into power back in the '60's, I think.
We have got to be able to smell the BS, so should our soldiers.
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Please ask an Iraqi if he
by Anonymous1 (not verified) on Wed Sep 19, 2007 08:30 PM PDTPlease ask an Iraqi if he preferred living under Saddam or is he happier now, the answer would surely surprise you, it did me.
It is no accident that
by Anonymous10 (not verified) on Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:45 AM PDTIt is no accident that archaeologists and anthropologists have not discovered any evidence of warfare during the Paleolithic era.... The consensus among archaeologists and anthropologists seems to be that cave people were too busy trying to survive and care for an entire group of people to indulge in warfare. There are even skeletal remains of handicapped people who were obviously taken care of by the rest of the group. Of course, populations were sparse, land and territory were not an "issue" in hunter-gatherer societies, since land "ownership" was not a concept then. Later, when an agrarian existence came into being, and "ownership" of land became an issue, along with resources to grow crops and have places for livestock to graze, then warfare became part of the lives of human beings - and continued to be more commonplace as human beings "evolved."
When it comes to art work and tools from the ancient past, it seems that people of the paleolithic era were far more civilized than present-day human beings. They had cooperative hunts that enabled the greatest number of them to survive to produce young, and feed, clothe and care for an entire group, and that's reflected in cave paintings and weaponry designed to kill animals for food, but not weapons to kill each other.
As the world becomes increasingly over-populated, humans have devolved into less civilized beings. Not only do we kill each other, but we kill off other species and make whole regions uninhabitable with our waste products and our pollution at alarming rates, disrupting the balance once sustained by Mother Nature.
That's a sad commentary on our species; our species being 'primates'. One look at behavior of chimps and their pattern of warfare, infatancides and petorling their territory will convince anyone that our nature is indeed warlike.
There will be more and more wars
by farrad02 on Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:19 AM PDTIt's always about money, resources and interests. As the number of people increase in our world, and the availability of resources (natural and otherwise) shrinks both in absolute terms and per capita, there is bound to be trouble! And the control of the ever decreasing resources will mean power and influence. So, unfortunately, you can be sure that wars and bloodshed are going to be a common occurance in this century. You may think I'm a sinister person, but I really think the good days of living on this green Earth may very well be over! I really feel sorry for our children!
Agree
by Foad on Wed Sep 19, 2007 09:59 AM PDTI couldn't agree more. You may like to add the current situation between Iran and the US and Israel. I recommend to everyone Jewish or Gentile to read this recently publish book "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy" by two real scholars from University of Chicago and Harvard.
Of course now the new bitches of GW in France, Mr Sarkozy and Company have replaced the old British one are beating the drum of war. I like to remind those fellow Iranians whose collective mouth is salivating that any war with Iran will bring them back to suck more blood from the tired body of Iran are sadly mistaken. Iran will become another Iraq and all of us have to witness the demise of another historic nation. These are the people, as you suggested, barking war song while themselves are happily living in their comfortable houses in the US and Europe.
Charge
by Farokh (not verified) on Wed Sep 19, 2007 09:37 AM PDTI totally agree with you but there is also another difference between the leaders of the yesteryears and today's supposedly "Leaders".
At least in the old days, the leaders would actually tell the truth about why they were going to war.
Today, 9 out of 10 World Leaders are liars who are the servants of the special interest groups and have no spine of their own to know better or make any decisions.
They serve the masters at any cost. The masters are behind the curtain running the show and these are the same masters who will destroy the current humanity and wipe the Planet off the human race sooner than a lot of common people would think.
Sad part of it is that people have no choice. They really don't elect these leaders/puppets. The Masters are the ones who select them to serve their greed.