War As a Solution
A statement by Obama recently caught my attention. He stated that if he had listened to the Republicans we would have been in 8 wars during his presidency—that he had counted them up.
Naturally this caused me to ponder the role of going to war in these times. If we are the strongest military power in the world and won’t use our military might, what good is it? If we still believe in freedom/democracy and won’t come to the aid of other people to achieve this, what kind of ethics is this? The worst dictators and repressive regimes on the globe certainly need to be eliminated.
The two World Wars demonstrated that weakness leads some dictators to expand their control over other countries with an appetite never satiated. These kind of empires have existed in earlier historical times. If we can stop brutal regimes from subjecting terror or injustice upon their citizens we ought to, it seems, do so. Today the problem hinges on the word ‘CAN’.
All of the above makes sense, except the times are now changed. We tried using our military might in Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Haiti, a dozen other South American countries, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, the Balkans, and Grenada. The only successes have been Balkans and Grenada, while Korea ended up in a stalemate. Granted, we could, if we wished, simply blow up every infrastructure and most every person in a given country, but what kind of solution would that be? This would not exactly be a victory, at least not for the people who lived in that country.
Are the people of Somalia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and dozens of South American countries better off because we sent in troops or provided military assistance? The only lesson learned is that violence breeds violence. We are finding this also true at home. Of course we haven’t learned that lesson at all. We have spent billions upon billions of dollars on military equipment and military invasions of one sort or another. Where are the shining successes? The pattern is clear enough: we go in, we kill ten of them for every one of us killed, there are no uniformed armies for us to attack, we hang in there for many years, then tire of it all, declare victory and leave. What is left behind is tons of rubble, thousands of land mines, bands of well armed thugs in charge of the country, or at least certain segments of the country, for short periods of time. The ‘best’ of their citizenry has fled the country and create religious, economic, cultural havoc in the countries to which they flee. What kind of victories are these?
More recently we have decided that well, we can’t just leave, we must at least leave some troops there to train these people to defend themselves from themselves. It is something similar to our police forces in our urban, suburban, and rural ghettoes. It would really be a stretch to say our inner cities are progressing just fine with this approach. What really happens is that our troops live in ‘green zones’ for safety in these foreign countries or our ghettoes, while the real citizens of the country are left with little or no personal security at all. American soldiers are constantly irritated that they go in and ‘free’ the local population in an area only to find scant evidence of popular support. Why don’t these people express thanks for being freed from thugs? It is simple enough, they know these thugs will be back when our soldiers leave, and it will be death to those who cooperated with our temporary occupation. Same with the foreign soldiers we train. They know they are marked men and prime candidates for revenge. They like getting a pay check, but they also realize at some point they are likely to pay dearly for it. And the thugs who want to rule realize that it is possible to infiltrate these American trained soldiers.
So there it all sits. We can’t win with an invasion, we can’t win with temporary occupation, town by town, and we can’t win by doing nothing. In some sense war has become obsolete. No one can win. Our own society is starting to crack with the ability of small groups or even individuals to create serious havoc. We have smart bombs, drones, all kinds of missiles, tanks, and many ways to monitor what group is up to what, and we eliminate leader after leader of this and that group, but they get replaced immediately, and the only thing changing is the number of varied groups participating in what approaches total havoc in more and more places across the globe.
So what, if we are the President, would we do? The universal ethical principle called the Golden Rule has been too much abandoned across the globe. The internet and media gadgets to communicate with fellow advocates of whatever cause we wish to be a part, becomes our ‘family’, our ‘community’, our source of leadership and loyalty. What does being an American or an Iraqian or any other broad category mean anymore? I know, America has always been a diverse entity, but in the past, people were obligated to go along until the next election. It is so bad now that it is difficult to get a third of the eligible voters to vote, even though voting has never been easier. For many people, their entire world is right on their smart phone and the internet; this includes myself whose world is to a great extent on the internet. But at 75 years of age perhaps that is excusable. What the hell do I have to accomplish anymore by getting back into some sort of rat race?
In the last analysis the picture seems bleak for the short run, and yet no particular worry for the long run. The problem is—sometimes for ourselves, and for our offspring, and for billions of humans and other species alive today—-there is no escape from the misery of the present and near future. The truth is, from any evolutionary standpoint, our human species is out of control—-way out of control. We cannot control our population explosion—responsible reproduction isn’t even on the table for any serious discussion. Human activity is wreaking havoc on our natural resources, on climate, on survival of other species, while we pollute everything in sight. On top of this, all very ‘real problems’ facing our planet are global and require global cooperation for solution, but there is zero possibility of any global action on these problems. No nation, by itself, can any longer create for themselves any peace or prosperity for any length of time. All people everywhere are looking over their shoulders, sensing so many dangerous trends bearing down on them. We, as a species, have become suicide bombers, destroying so much of our planet with our self serving activities and yet when our destructive activities are effectuated, we end up killing ourselves, some sooner than others. The only difference is that our current activities take decades, not a half hour like the well publicized mass killers, and many of us have not yet got to the stage where we ourselves get eliminated. The 2-5 percenters, who own like 90% of our wealth, still are not satisfied, they want more and they have the power to create laws which allow them to get even more, simply unable to understand that when things finally implode, it will be the ‘have nots’ who will win, although it will be a strange kind of win in the sense no one will be left with personal safety or prosperity. We will then all be some sort of Iraq West or Afghanistan West, etc. Without global minimum wages, no workers anywhere can prosper. Without global enforcement of pollution and responsible reproduction, no species anywhere is safe from extinction. Without the elimination of inherited religious factions, the Golden Rule cannot be developed as the universal basis for human ethics. The differing religions, at least the purists, will all continue their crusades against perceived heathens.
In short, war as we have known it in past times, has now become obsolete. It no longer can solve much of anything. The smallest groups have the means via modern gadgets and personal weapons of mass destruction to create havoc at will. To paraphrase Lincoln, a planet divided against itself cannot stand, the world cannot endure, permanently divided into those living in the best of all possible worlds, and those living in the worst of all possible worlds. We are living today in the midst of evolution’s 5th mass species extinction era, and this always is followed by a huge evolutionary correction. Because we function under human time, we can’t really grasp evolutionary time. Of all the species that have existed on earth, 99.9 percent are now extinct. Most of them perished in 5 cataclysmic events. What is unique now is that none of these previous cataclysmic events were caused by the activities of one species. Of the 6-10 million current species existing, we have only identified 1 million. Over normal evolutionary periods 1-5 species become extinct each year. We are now losing 1,000-10,000 species per year and human activity is behind most of it. I suppose, with our scientific knowledge increasing so rapidly, that one could postulate we shouldn’t worry—we soon will be able to recreate any species we want. But of course species extinction is only one problem bearing down on us. We have already mentioned others.
So the picture is scary. War doesn’t work anymore. The Golden Rule, the inherent basis for human ethics, is being nullified by religious, cultural, ethnic, and economic factions wrapped in the global trap of human overpopulation. Since it is impossible for there to be enough resources for all humans to live the kind of lifestyle some of us now live, those seeking to get the same slice of pie, are going to engage in ever more desperate ways to get such a slice, and when their efforts fail, some will kill themselves, but take out as many others as they can on their way out. Right now, this sort of mentality is growing exponentially. There is sure increasing violence taking place in more and more areas of the world. We seem to be trapped. Violence creates more violence, which creates the perfect scenario for thug-like leaders to gain control over areas for limited lengths of time, to be replaced by different thugs. There is no shortage of really good people amongst the various diversified groups, but the thugs via media communication gadgets and personal weapons of human destruction, are gaining power everywhere.
There is no logical reason to think evolution will end, that some sort of massive evolutionary correction will not occur as in the past, but for those living in today’s human time, well, now might be a good time to become extinct via natural death. There is nothing more amazing to contemplate than this evolutionary process which has been proceeding for millions of years, but clearly this process is not focused on any individual successes. That’s a tad annoying, but it is what it is, and while I am grateful for my own situation, it is tempered constantly by my awareness of everywhere too much ‘still sad music of humanity’. With all the modern media gadgets, all this massive ‘sad music of humanity’ is up in our face all the time, endlessly. We are numbed by it all, and it becomes the new ‘norm’ and like always, we gate it all off as our only personal defense from it. The best any of us can do, is follow Lincoln’s advice, and “to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” In the last analysis I suspect most people are still glad a particular sperm, by chance, won the race to unite with a particular egg to let us all, as individuals, have a unique existence for a microcosmic infinitesimal period of time in the evolutionary process.
We all, to varying degrees, are like deer in the middle of the road, frozen in place by the glare of oncoming headlights. The immediate solution? “Only the Shadow knows”. Meanwhile, while you wait for the next ‘Lincoln’ to surface, you might ask the bartender if what you are drinking comes in a keg.
While we wait for the next ‘Lincoln’ to appear on the scene we so far only get the likes of Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Putin, Kim Jong-un, Benjamin Netanyahu, Bashar al-Assad, Ali Khamenei,
Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, Robert Mugabe, the Kardashians, Justin Beiber, Ndamukong Suh, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham, Kanye West, Bill Cosby,
Jane and Willow Smith and Dad, Donald Sterling, Aaron Hernandez—I am tiring of these Americans, enough to realize the pleasures of hermit-hood. Stop the World, I want to get off. Nah, it is what it is and we can all find a little niche away from it all—for maybe a little bit longer.
Related quotations:
Being an optimist after you've got everything you want doesn't count. ~Kin Hubbard
It's still possible to be a cockeyed optimist these days — you just have to be a little more cockeyed. ~Robert Brault,
"Okay, we all realize that the situation is temporarily hopeless." ~Robert Brault
The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum. ~Havelock Ellis,
After 5000 years of recorded human history, you wonder, What part of 2,000,000 sunrises doesn't a pessimist understand? ~Robert Brault,
