As to the larger question, I have to echo George Carlin: we love war. I frankly do not see how anyone could read the WWI poets or anything about WWI and not be opposed to this mass insanity of testing-to-destruction if the human breast can turn aside a one-ounce lead projectile moving at 900 fps. And the sad part is how gleefully the young go off to war, how gladly their mothers surrender them (ever see the statement of "UK Mothers for the War" in WWI? I think Sassoon quotes it in the last book of his biography), how their girlfriends put flowers in their gun barrels and cry tears more of pride than fear as the poor bastards march off to be shredded.
But perhaps we have learned some over the past 100 years. Not our leaders, no: war costs them nothing, so there is no incentive for them to avoid war. Crocodile tears aside, and appropriate breast-beating about the "tough decisions" that must be made by our Fearless Leaders. I suppose I could be wrong, but it is hard for me to imagine Western wives, mothers, and lovers sending off their young men with a song in their hearts. (Aye, okay, sexist imagery, no contest there) But the Disconnect has become so great in the West that our leaders continue to happily make the "tough decisions" that benefit none of those wives, mothers, or lovers. And outside the West, where passions are greater and the crisis imminent and present, the young men will march gladly because they believe it in some way proves their manhood.
I have come to one conclusion in this regard at this point in my not-so-very-long-really life, and that is this: So long as our culture continues to define "strength" as "the ability to impose your will on another," there will be war. And rape. And assault. And all the catalogue of crimes and man's inhumanity to man. Perhaps it is a "true" definition. Perhaps it is a "necessary" one, for the survival of the culture, or indeed the species. That lies beyond my small wisdom. But there it is: to be strong means to make others do your bidding. And who would be so weak, as to desire not to be strong?
-- Mal
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