Sunday, August 7, 2011

A country at war

There's not much more that will dry a man or his country out more than a perpetual war. Wars are a mean evil disease that without correction  will eat away at the very fiber of a country and all that  it  is composed of. War has been defined as: A state of organized, armed and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, societal disruption, and usually high mortality, as defined by Wikipedia.Richard E Smalley, a 2003 Nobel Laureate, identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing the society of mankind for the next fifty years. It was a treatise in 1832 "On war", a Prussian military general and theoretician, Carl Von Clausewitz, defined war as: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will." There was another notable and courageous general that fought in one of  this country's infamous wars, the civil war, one in which brother was against brother, the north against the south, and so, General William T Sherman stated: " I am sick and tired of war. It's glory is all moonshine, it is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation, war is hell, if forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you. In our country, one class of men makes war and leaves another to fight it out. The scenes on this field would have cured anybody of war".
While war seems to be inescapable and an integral aspect of human culture, as stated by 'Wikipedia', I am of the opinion that man must train himself to resist the urge and scourge of war, to enter into such an arena is the place where only the unlearned find themselves. Our country went to war under false pretense, say what you will, the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan should not have been waged (there will be more to be said about that at a later time). Presently, with the apprehension and demised of Osama Bin Laden  in May of 2011 at the hands of the Navy Seals, our mission in the country of Afghanistan should have marked an end of our time in that war torn country. A man appetite  for war should always be in its "fullness" thereby he should shy away from it and all of its dehumanizing ways. I, for one, will only give consent to war when every avenue of resolution has been employed and will not enter into or engage in jousting for the sake of or under pretentious reasoning. There has been enough of this country's most valued treasure lost in far away lands as well as here at home and there need not any more to be expended.
I have reached the discourse of this subject, after much confabulation in print, I am ready to infer that war will rob any man and his countrymen of all that they hold ever so dear, war makes a man mad. And so, I will repeat that which I have heard and hold so heart-felt: God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change; courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference".
Comrades, Let's Go Home.