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Politicians hide themselves away/They only started the war/Why should they go out to fight?/They leave that all to the poor, yeah/Time will tell on their power minds/Making war just for fun/Treating people just like pawns in chess/Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah
Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
😭 It was in the Operating Room too, which means it had no laugh track. I loved the versatility of this show, but the OR was dead serious. The optimism of Mulcahey against the emphatic cynicism of Hawk is a great character moment. I'm dead inside.
i think the real indictment is how we treat people who refuse to participate and die for the profit of the already rich; the government treats them with imprisonment while the rest of us treat them like a coward for standing up for themselves in thoroughly fucked up system..
Yeah... That type of brainwashing is so commonplace now though. Just look at how the US is treating striking dock workers, people keep talking about how they make xxx,xxx and not how the ceos make xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx like it's the workers being greedy... 🥲
The keyboard warriors instantly became experts on labor negotiations /s, even though they seemingly haven't had the elementary realization that demands are movable in a negotiation, and you don't negotiate by saying "oh, I actually make quite enough money compared to poor workers in Alabama with no union representation and I love the current benefits thank you kindly, sir".
"war is people that know each other but don't kill each other making people that don't know each other, kill each other"
I can't remember the author, but i love this old quote
Why do they always send the poor?
Why don't presidents fight the war?
America places a lot of value in the concept of the person having the final say over our armed forces being a civilian. There are multiple very good reasons for that.
Multiple presidents have served in the military prior to becoming president, many of whom have seen combat. The last American president to do so was George HW Bush, who served in the air force and was shot down over the Pacific in WW2.
As to why that hasn't happened more recently, it's because the American people don't see it as a priority. HW Bush was replaced by Bill Clinton. W Bush won over purple heart recipient John Kerry. Obama won over veteran and POW John McCain. Clinton, Bush, and Trump went even farther and essentially dodged the draft.
Generals gathered in their masses. Just like witches at black masses.
I have never understood war. Why a country want to attack another country. To me is it like I am free to move there so I have no need to attack them. You disagree, just walk away. They have resources? Stealing is not allowed so you can't do that. You dont own the whole world. No one will. War only leads to people die. No one should be happy about that. Yes, I cannot fight in a war. I would be a coward and flee to a better place.
"I am free to move there", saying you are American/western European without saying you are American/western European.
Power, ideology and ressources
Stealing is not allowed so you can’t do that. You dont own the whole world.
The problem is that everything is allowed, so they just do that.
Those who don't want to fight in some war - terrorize your population sufficiently and they'll obey, or you can keep them under propaganda pressure and they'll agree.
I would be a coward and flee to a better place.
What if someone wants to take your land, demolish thousand years old churches and fortresses and graveyards, kill all your countrymen they can, all that purely out of hate\envy and because they can?
Would you not want to kill some of those people? Would you not want to prevent such things happening.
I learned over time that things are just thing and can be replaced/rebuilt. However losing other people is hard, especially family. So I would probably try to convince them to flee as well.
I know that computer games like first shooter is really hard. In real life you can't just reset when you die. You can't learn from your mistakes. You are dead.
I know there are really brave people out there and fight for the right cause. I don't understand how they make it thought the suffering. Just being on the field is a trauma if you survive.
I know there are many wars today. I don't go to another country to support. I am unfortunately selfish in that regard. But if no one participant in war, then maybe there is no war at all. But that will never happen.
I guess if you feel enough trauma and humiliation and indignation from what happens there, you might be able to go.
But ultimately, I suppose, it's just taking full responsibility for yourself, including possible suffering and death. In some sense being afraid is obeying the fear.
As they say, death is unfinished business. When you are not allowing yourself to drop everything and go, you won't be able to consciously risk your life.
Why I want to talk about this - because someone should fight wars on the weaker side, where it is always harder. Otherwise our world will keep becoming more hellish.
I'm no politologist or military strategist, but I'm pretty sure a lot of wars (not all of them) are started so that a nation's government can get better control over their own population. If the state can declare an emergency situation, they can use it to justify cracking down on political dissidents, invasive surveillance, restrincting freedom of speech, etc in the eyes of the public. It can also be used to ramp up nationalism, which works in the ruling class' favour. Pretty sure this is at least part of the reason behind putin and nettanyahu stirring shit up right now.
This just sounds like corrupt govemernet. We all know the right way to fight their own government. Protests.
That is a very interesting observation. The anthropologists Davids Graeber and Wengrow studied how human groups had been controlled by charismatic leadership going back into prehistory. These groups could become authoritarian dictatorships which wage wars against their neighbors, engage in slavery, and human sacrifice. Alternatively when they were egalitarian and controlled by democratic institutions they were the opposite. More peaceful and equal.
Why a country want to attack another country.
A lot of reasons. The most common is a territorial dispute that escalates over time.
The Israel invasion of Gaza is a response to the Al Asqa Flood, which was a response to Israeli encroachment into the Al Asqa Mosque which was a response to Palestinian protests over Israeli treatment of protesters during the 2018 March of Return which was a response to the blah blah blah which was a response to the Israeli Nakba of 1948. And all of that is a consequence of British colonialism in the Middle East, followed by a sloppy (arguably deliberately so) partisan of territories between Arabs and Jews at the end of WW2.
We could play the same game with Ukraine/Russia, which is an extension of a conflict dating back to WW1 and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Or we could go to China/Taiwan and talk about the number of times that the island changed hands from early antiquity to the end of the Chinese Civil War.
Stealing is not allowed so you can’t do that.
Telling this to the American First Nations people. Passing the word along to descendants of African and Latin American slaves.
Think of foreign policy as a ladder, and you are the person in charge of your country (or at least their foreign relations). Each rung is a new action you can take to influence the behavior of other countries.
The first step is formal communications. That's easy, you're probably on that step with just about every other nation. The next few rings are all other friendly diplomatic steps, things like opening embassies, making trade agreements, non-aggression pacts, etc.
Now let's say a neighboring country is doing something you don't like. Your nation's grievance with them will fall into one of a few broad categories: they are a threat to your security, they are a threat to your interests, or they are a threat to your honor (meaning your international reputation). Whatever the reason, your job is to change their behavior and none of the previous steps on the ladder have worked, so now you climb higher.
The next rungs are less friendly, but are still diplomatic. These are things like denouncements, cessation of trade, tariffs, and sanctions. At the very top of this set of rungs, you close your embassy and demand they close theirs. You break off most communication. Finally, you tell the whole world why they have wronged you.
Now you've done everything you can diplomatically, but their behavior is still a threat to your security, interest, or honor. How do you change their behavior? There are more rungs on the ladder.
Going all the way back to Sun Tzu, generals have known that their job was to take over when the diplomats failed. This doesn't mean that total war is immediate or inevitable. The military could conduct raids, surgical strikes, or enforce an embargo. Warfare is simply the top rungs of the ladder of foreign policy. Some nations climb it more quickly or willingly than others, but war exists on the same spectrum as diplomacy.
Countries don't attack other countries.
Governments attack other governments.
All of us normal folks who just want to live life are forced along for the ride because we happen to live within the boundaries of a particular government's claimed territory.
"War is where the old and bitter fool the young and reckless into killing each other"
Cousin, let's go play bowling.
Why don't presidents fight in wars? Why do they always send the poor?
The warrior-king model certainly had its own flaws, but at least when the king declared war, he picked up a sword and fought.
Bc people are so stupid, they believe in nationalism and are easy to manipulate
Zelensky has done a fine job getting directly involved, imo.
TBH this is a case where hiding away makes sense. Russia absolutely wants him dead, and his value rallying Western support alone is pivotal. Even dehumanized, he's a strategic asset.
I wouldn't imagine he lives a particularly luxurious life, either, even if its a very expensive one.
There are definitely some wars I'd much rather were just MMA death fights between the PM's and presidents.
And others where I'm glad they aren't, because the country whose victory would be best for the common good is led by someone who would not win a physical fight.
I don’t really understand this seemingly widespread notion - that is also represented in this comic - that nations “agree” to go to war.
That is not really how it works most of the time, there is usually an aggressor and a victim. It is usually not two powerful leaders butchering their own country’s population, but rather one powerful leader butchering two countries’ population.
I know it’s not the point of this comic, but this really, really annoys me.
I think WW1 was kind of like the comic. It was a bunch of squabbling family members who got into a pissing match and then sent their citizens to die. It never would have happened if Gramma Vicky had still been alive!
Sure, but this comic wasn’t made 100 years ago. It reeks of that “they should BOTH stop fighting!” rhetoric, that only benefits aggressors.
Anybody ever play Advanced Wars?
I loved that game as a kid. But as I've gotten older, it's really sad to watch my CO be this kid with something to prove sending people out to die because Yay Kaboom Wippee!
The cool thing about Advanced Wars (and other build-a-unit games) is that the units are not, themselves, people. They are simply widgets that exist long enough to complete a mission and then stop existing.
The problem with COs IRL is that they're not just summoning combatants from the Ether. They're calling up other real humans to do incredibly dangerous shit, ostensibly for the betterment of "the nation" (but in practice we know better). And these people don't just appear/disappear for the war. They continue to live with the nightmare they survived, or they leave behind family and friends who have their own blood feuds to settle with the enemy nation.
You know, I didn't pick that vibe in Advance Wars! I like it. They're just tools.
Rich man's war, poor man's fight.
Kropp, on the other hand, is more philosophical. He reckons that all declarations of war ought to be made into a kind of festival, with entrance tickets and music, like they have at bullfights. Then the ministers and generals of the two countries would have to come into the ring, wearing boxing shorts, and armed with rubber truncheons, and have a go at each other. Whoever is left on his feet, his country is declared the winner. That would be simpler and fairer than things are out here, where the wrong people are fighting each other.
- All Quiet on the Western Front