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A cautionary tale…
Ask not what your country can do for you, but how often you can die for your country
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Down the end of Melbourne’s St Kilda Rd squats the Shrine. When the CUB brewery was at the end of Swanston St, the joke used to be that the city was bounded by two shrines. The difference of course was that a brewery is dedicated to life and pleasure, while the Shrine is simply part of a national death cult. Its entire aim is to persuade young men — and now, with our “progressive” government, young women — to throw away their one life on earth, their one existence, for whatever a bunch of politicians decide constitutes a national threat. Australia has had one war, one single war, the Pacific campaign against the Japanese, which constituted a genuine defence of the community against an enemy whose occupation would have been murderous and vicious — if they were intending to invade Australia at all. The European war against the Axis turned out to be a “good war” but it was not contracted for that purpose. Menzies had praised that “honourable gentleman” Adolf Hitler as late as 1938, and we joined the fight only because Britain did. Our other wars have all been pointless imperial conflicts. One series — the Boer — Gallipoli — Iraq - Afghanistan — is simply the same war stretched over a century, the maintenance of the “Middle East” Anglo-American empire. Korea and Vietnam were human sacrifice for the purpose of shoring up the US alliance. You can add in our other bits and pieces — the Malayan “emergency” (so-called so that plantation owners would not lose their Lloyds insurance, for reasons of war), anti-Red intervention in 1917 Russia, etc — all fit into this pattern. Now we are in Afghanistan, for the same muddled reasons we found ourselves on the beach at Dardanelles — the belief that the Muslim East was somehow a dysfunctional and decadent domain that would crumple at the first kick, to be effortlessly reconstructed in Western form. Just as in Australia today, the drivers of the war were “progressive liberals” who fused imperial adventure to social reform. Desperate for a rationale for Afghanistan, Labor and others have turned it into a feminist war, of all things, blowing up women in order to save them. Next year we will learn that the Taliban’s cooking stoves are carbon-profligate, and it will be a green war — just as earlier wars were crusades against ‘oriental despotism’. What’s really weird about Gallipoli is that it was not a campaign that became a source of national identity — it was designed that way in the first place. Billy Hughes, more or less an Australian fascist, spoke endlessly through World War 1 of the need for a “blood sacrifice” to make the country. Gallipoli was a death cult, exactly of the same order of the Hezbollah elders who strap suicide vests to angry young men and point them in the direction of the checkpoint. Even the Pacific war began as a European encirclement of Japan, as a way of maintaining European colonial dominance. The propaganda subsequently used to inspire people to fight turned it into a race war — the ultimate dehumanisation of the Japanese as subhuman, made it easy to use the atom bomb against them. The bravery and sacrifice of Kokoda are worth honouring (though the entire population of Papua New Guinea was virtually enslaved by white Australians for the duration of the war), but how we got to that point doesn’t stand much scrutiny. In recent decades, Remembrance Day has been subtly changed, from an “appreciation” of sacrifice, to a more fuzzy humanist reflection on loss. But its purpose remains to sanctify unthinking sacrifice for national purpose. We now have the spectacle of an antiwar activist John Faulkner, running this futile pointless war in Afghanistan. Faulkner has become the Ruddock of Labor, a latter-day Rubashov — the party has asked that he annihilate his values by running Defence, and he is happy to oblige. You can already see the man stiffening and rigidifying in the role. He’s a decent man, and if the casualties start to flow, the war will cripple his psyche — and he’ll deserve it. Fortunately, though Australians have turned Anzac Day into some sort of carnivale where you march about in your grandad’s medals; no-one really believes in it. Regular and reserve recruitment remains stubbornly around 25% below target, limiting operational effectiveness. But who’s going to sign up to the frikkin army, and actually get shot in training or something? Far better to do the Gallipoli-Oktoberfest Kontiki tour, run a right wing thinktank or write tracts on “progressive patriotism”. Imagine what a crimp the damn army reserve would put in a cosmopolitan globetrotting academic career. The army? That’s for kids who want a skills upgrade, and are happy to trade the risk of death to do it. Next Anzac Day, we should take a bunch of recruitment forms to the eternal flame and see how many fit young men and women shedding a tear are willing to actually sign up and serve their country. We don’t need silence on Remembrance Day. We need to start talking about the death cult being perpetrated and perpetuated — and think not of noble sacrifice but of the air thick with the lives never lived by the children sent to these wars, the marriages never made, the children never had. They didn’t die believing in Britain, or running like the wind — they died as everyone dies in such circumstances, shitting their pants and crying for their mothers, wondering what the hell they’d done. That’s what needs to be remembered today. Have a beer instead, feel the sun on your face, and live the life these people never got to. |
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241 Comments
Guy
Many veterans will share your sentiments - particularly the cynicism of politicians who commit Australians to futile endeavours. You miss the point, however, about the Shrine and other memorials throughout Australia. These are important symbols of consciousness about those who died (in whatever circumstances). For me, the memorial service held in my small town today brought back precious memories of my fellow soldiers who were killed in Vietnam. I try to keep their memory alive and memorials like the Shrine are an important part of this process. You are on the wrong tram equating this with a “national death cult” - it is much more personal than that.
Frank Dawson
The tram that took me into work this morning announced its allegiance to the death-cult via recorded message - trams would stop for one minute (longer).
The death-cult is just getting stronger every year, deriving its power from the Imperial Australian flag draped over the southern-cross-tatooed shoulders of the youth.
I wish praising war in our society could just rest in peace
Bloody well said, Guy.
What’s your source for the comment about Menzies and Hitler? It doesn’t google (except to this article).
Hard hitting, Guy… perhaps a bit too hard, IMHO.
There is room for respect of international bonds, eg with Britain, USA. There is need to recognise the “fog of war” wherein truth is thinly spread and pain is ladled on thickly.
However, the current skirmish in Afganistan appears to me to be a lost cause… somewhat akin to Vietnam. And I have never had anything but the greatest admiration of and respect for the Vietnam Vets, who did their jobs well, despite problemmatic leadership.
Equal respect must be given to those who fight for peace, with negligible budgets and no public recognition. How this country could make a mark if it provided for peace studies in the same way that we study war, supported by peace funding akin to the funding of the armed forces! And please don’t tell me that peacekeeping forces are the answer. I am talking about programs delivering hope, training and infrastructure to peoples who have no avenue to achieve these things by themselves.
So much nicer than trying to blow a nation off the planet, don’t you agree?
How are you lumping the Boer War in with Gallipoli, Iraq & Afghanistan? The latter three I see where you are going, but the Boer War couldn’t be more disparate.
I look forward to seeing you relate the conflict between ethnic Dutch Boers and the British Imperial forces over the Orange Free State and the right to self government in South Africa to the other conflicts.
OMG! I have been saying this for years. I’ve broken off halfway though the comment to congratulate you Guy. I hope you will mention the RSLs seedy contribution to this death scenario.
Once again Guy, you make it worth the price of admission.
Well done!
“Next Anzac Day, we should take a bunch of recruitment forms to the eternal flame and see how many fit young men and women shedding a tear are willing to actually sign up and serve their country”
Yes that would be telling. Not likely to happen though as the awkward silence would be too much for us to bear.
Mostly I agree with this, however, earlier this year I was lucky enough to tour the Western Front in France, which confirmed for me what a pointless war it was and what the hell were we doing over there in the first place? It was so sad seeing all the graves and so many even without a name. I am happy to take a minute’s silence to remember those who died in pointless wars a long way from home that had nothing to do with the defence of Australia - it is a very sobering experience to visit Fromelles and see the mass grave of 400 Australian soldiers -however, I refuse to honour the dumb politicians who got us into these stupid wars in the first place.
It worries me when I see young people interviewed about what ANZAC Day means, especially when they say things like ‘they died so we could be free’ - this of course is total rubbish - Australia was not even threatened in WW1. The meaning of ANZAC Day has changed over the years and I wonder how many people actually know how it came about? A pointless, badly planned campaign on the other side of the world, not a defence of ‘our’ freedoms. It all smacks of that over the top American style patriotism, where people wrap themselves in the flag (the irony of having the Union Jack in the corner being lost on them) and pretend we were fighting for something worthwhile, which we weren’t.
EDWARD THOMPSON: If you put it around another way it makes complete sense.
From the Boer War up to the middle of WWII were all wars of Britain. People volunteered to fight for the home country. (pronounced heem).
Even after Japan attacked Australia it was hard to get enthusiasm from the people of Oz to fight on their own behalf. War correspondents like Damien Parrer had to make propaganda films to whip up some interest. Finally John Curtain had to make it mandatory to enlist in the armed forces. For a country that prides itself on it’s military past this is makes for interesting reading. (We had to be forced to defend ourselves, but died without question for England and America.)
After WWII we fought in America’s wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan.
Initially, the eleventh day of the eleventh month has been a time for mature reflection on the values of life and death; while the Dionesque rampages of ANZAC day-whipped into hysteria by John Howard-where young people turn up to Anzac Cove to get pissed and shag themselves silly as they perform like circus clowns for the benefit of the radio and television stations, has become a sick joke.
I doubt that the men who fought and died there would have been impressed. Anzac day has been turned into a pissing, shagging, rooting, littering Carnival. Whilst here in Oz the RSL works devotedly to soak the populace into a justification of theatre-farce of a day which should merit respect. And Fosters, Carlton & United make a bomb.
IMHO it was to be hoped that Remembrance Day would maintain the dignity that Anzac Day happily forgot.
And sometimes I have to ask myself, is this not an expensive way to train our troops?
PS: I can’t believe it. I didn’t actually say the words WWI.
JEREMY ROSE: Try Pig-iron Bob. (Menzies)
And what of the millions of civilians slaughtered while our “boys” killed each other and them over bits of dirt and not much else.
I disagree with a couple of posters that we should remember the people who died trying to kill other people above the people who died from industrial accidents, car accidents or whatever. Rather than show young people that their death in the military will give them immortality (‘lest we forget’) we should dissuade them from wasting others’ and their own lives in purposive killing just as vigorously as we try to dissuade them from killing themselves and others in cars.
The hypocrisy of the shrine of remembrance priests is demonstrated by their refusal to allow a wreath to be laid to remember the women who were raped in war.
I wholeheartedly concur with Guy’s piece and all the above comments. The only thing I’d add is that I’ve met several people over the past year whose sons have joined the army; much to their horror; and who were then treated in the most brutish way. I don’t think we’ve learned anything since Vietnam. The army still thinks the way to make a soldier is to treat him/her like shit before sendingthem to do a horror job and telling them to get over it without support.
Not sure just what your point is, Guy. Remembrance Day and ANZAC Day mean many things to many people. Do you really think we have a death cult when by your own admission people, by and large, aren’t joining the military?
Finding the right balance between realpolitik and behaving morally is the ultimate test for any government (and by extension, any nation). Do you really think we shouldn’t have fought the Japanese (who certainly did intend to invade, incidentally)? Even fighting in Europe surely had some moral purpose, regardless of whether Menzies thought Hitler was a top bloke.
Equally, other wars have been utterly pointless. It’s just not so simple as you’re making out.
I, and I suspect many people, take the opportunity on days like to day to reflect on the sacrifices made by others. I think most of us understand that when soldiers (and civilians in war zones) die, they die shitting their pants and calling for their mommies. The point is that we should honour their sacrifice, even if we don’t honour the reason for it.
You can protest a war, after all, even as you support the soldiers fighting it.
dear Frank
I can completely understand people remembering dead comrades. I have no problem with people making permanent memorials to such. The trouble is that a building like the Shrine and memorials in general are often established by the state, and used to sell the next war, not mourn the last. Even today was used to sell the Afghan war.
But you’re right - I was remiss in not making the point that there are effectively two ceremonies going on - the private commemoration of loss, and the uses of it by the state, and a sentence to that effect would have made it a more rounded article. Thanks for making the point.
Michael
Do you really think we have a death cult when by your own admission people, by and large, aren’t joining the military?
This was the question I asked myself.
I treat remembrance day and Anzac day as a way to remember my late father who fought in China in WWII. I recall watching Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence with him and asking if it was realistic to what he went through. He replied that it was fairly correct especially when it shows how the people actually fighting on both sides are the drones and live fairly similar lives in peacetime.
I believe that we should remember what has gone before us in all facets of life. This is another one of them. I read in the graphic novel EnemyAce:War Idyll a quote from Kipling “When they ask why they died, tell them it was because their fathers lied.”
Not this little black duck or any of mine.
Well put. Some of the criticism is valid, but overall I liked and agreed with your article.
The last post, and the minute’s silence message, was played over our large office tower emergency PA system today. I couldn’t believe it. While I honour those who have sacrificed for us, compulsory rememberance smacks of compulsory religion. And really pisses me off.
And it would be an understatement to say that I think that the reasons for Australia going to war were (and are) a slightly more nuanced than you are making out. For example, Gallipoli was bad but the rest of WWI was good? This smacks a little of oversimplication and 20/20 hindsight.
But a fascinating article nonetheless.
Thanks Guy, I agree with you and the other comments. Today is my eldest son’s birthday. When he was growing up and knew he was born early morning, and then learning about Remembrance Day, he asked me why I couldn’t hang on from 6.15 am until 11am??Now he has his own kids, and witnessed their births, he understands.
My 3 sons’ paternal grandfather lost his leg at Tobruk in 1941? He never spoke of his experiences; we always watched the march on Anzac Day, and my kids were told when his battallion went by.
While we watched the horror of the Vietnam War, and my boys were still either babies or little people, this wonderful man was my strongest supporter when I said, that they’d never get my sons to kill other women’s babies, and nobody was going to kill them either. He always winked at me or gave me a special smile. He was the first ‘peace person’ I met.
He and his wife would take these boys on their annual holidays - in a small caravan. They’ve seen more of Australia than I have, and they still speak of the wonderful chats they’d have around the fire at night. He left a wonderful legacy for my sons who loved them both dearly. He suffered pain and disability for the next 60 odd yrs of his life, but he never complained, in fact, he could tell the best stories about his ‘leg breaking’ or ‘flying off’ and loved the shocked reaction of bystanders?? Sadly, memories are all we have now. He didn’t fight for the bloody flag, or any other nonsense; he wanted his grandkids to live in freedom, and he showed them what love and commitment means, every day of their lives.
Well done Guy.
Fighting for freedom, fighting for peace, supreme sacrifice, dying for us to be safe, defending Australian values, oxymorons the lot of them.
Even worse is the ugly political ploy of accusing protesters against armed conflict as treachery against our Defence forces -” letting down our courageous boys who are risking their lives defending our freedoms”. Defence forces who have been ordered into shameful conflict against civilians who are as helpless as we are to prevent our leaders from this filthy culture of war.
Why does nobody do an economic feasibility study of the cost of war to show the benefits and losses, taking into consideration the terrible price paid by future as well as present generations of participants on both sides?
You do keep sticking your head above the popular parapet don’t you Guy? The hit song “Only 19” should have reminded us that most people believe whatever they are told by the dominant regime. Currently we’re occupying Afghanistan in support of a puppet regime, just as the Russians did int he 1980s, just as we did in Vietnam. If troops from Japan or the Peoples Republic of East Bumcrack were occupying Oz today, I’d guess one or three people might be annoyed enough to resist.
Liz45 - whilst I am sure you were uneducated at that time of your life, I find it utterly offensive to refer or even mention the name “baby killers”. My best friends father was conscripted to Vietnam and survived but only to spend the next 30 years in and out of repatriation hospitals for mental illness as a direct result of the war. He ended his life a few years ago. So, keep that sort of filthy language for your own home.
SusieQ - are you serious? do you know much about WW1? it is easy, almost 100 years on from WW1, to contemplate that the world would not be any different if the likes of Germany were able to achieve what they sent out to do. Yes times do change but you are being disrespectful to the many ANZAC victims of WW1 by saying that they fought for nothing. They fought for everything, including freedom.
If people want another perspective as to why we’re bringing terror to the people of Afghanistan and also Iraq, put this in your search engine - From Afghanistan to Iraq-joining the dots with oil. Operation Iraqi Liberation spells OIL! There’s other websites that can take you to the sites that show how workers and ‘ordinary people’ in Iraq are fighting against the privitisation of their oil industry that is going to rob the people of billions of dollars in the coming years. WE are helping Australian companies like BHP Billiton and the ANZ Bank etc, who are helping the US in their quest to steal these peoples’ lifeline to rebuild their country! I reject every facet of the revolting fraud that’s going on. If we don’t educate ourselves, the rest of the population will only hear about it after the deals have been made. In other words, let’s not wait for their time frame re the truth - find it out for yourselves! It’s been a lie from 9/11 until now!
The US has invaded, occupied or interfered with 50 countries since the end of WW2. They have about 75 military bases around the world. Why do we let this happen? Why have we remained not only silent, but slavishly followed them in their horrific empire building blood sports - like Chile, El Salvador, Diego Garcia, Iraq(twice) and recently Honduras? They haven’t even ratified the UN Declaration on the Rights of Women, let alone the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child? Why is that? Because - if they don’t sign, they can continue on doing what they’ve been doing, with the sanction of Australian successive govts. We need to wake up to the truth, before it’s too late.
Agree absolutely. I saw a bunch of schoolgirls in a local park today being exposed to the “sacrifice for our freedom” line, with The Last Post played twice. The local shrine in that park is enclosed by chains with a big sign on it saying” Do not allow your children to play on this shine. It would desecrate the memory of the fallen soldiers”. How stupid. I believe most fallen soldiers would like to think they afforded some fun to little children at least!
I believe the propaganda is being exploited more every year & I think it’s for the ‘perpetual war economy’ or ‘military Keynsianism’, which no doubt, the US relies on more heavily today to rescue it from the GFC as WWII rescued it from from the Great Depression. All shored up by this “glorious death of our youth” tripe & “the specialness” of young people dying in War.
It should be a day of national mourning & guilt, that Australia has been so eager to please its imperial masters, not a day of celebration, as should Anzac Day.
There is a War Memorial in every tiny town in this country. There are none for Aboriginal massacre sites, & here the Germans put us to shame. They acknowledge guilt & allow sorrow for their victims.
How many statues do we have for our 13 Nobel Prize winners- more per capita than any other nation on earth? Who knows the names of more than 2 of them?
Today is a day of getting angry at our politicians’ perpetual eagerness to sacrifice young people (rarely their own) to their Imperial “allies”; yesterday the Brits, today the USA. And today it has become even more corrupt because it is a sacrifice for arms manufacturers, and international oil, gas & mineral corporations. But “My son died for Xtrata or Exxonmobil,” etc, doesn’t sound as good as for”freedom & democracy”??
Meanwhile Pine Gap sits in our middle like a malignant cancer preying on the abject.
are you suggesting diplomacy is the best option for all countries Susan? or would you prefer we turn a blind eye to regime led atrocities and continue on with our blessed lives?
I agree, war these days is too complicated. Given the eventual involvement of the US ended WW2, we certainly like to throw stones at them whilst also asking for their help at the same time.
For all the do-gooder countries out there, we are turning into one, we were certainly comfortable in turning a blind eye to the atrocities of Rwanda and other warn torn countries.
Liz45 - I think you get too many facts from conspiracy theory led documentaries that are directed by university media students.
Australians (along with most people in the world) do not take war seriously
Wars, if they should be fought at all, should involve not a select group of professional soldiers, sailors and airmen, but the entire nation
The idea that war can be left to professionals while the rest of us live normally is obscene in the extreme
Sporting venues, entertainment venues and restaurants should be closed for the duration
Wars are far too serious to be left to the valiant few. The entire resources of the nation should be applied to the war effort
If nothing more can be added to the aggressive fire power then a peace keeping operation should be undertaken under the protection of a greatly expanded military
Either we are serious about winning the so called war or we are not
The present half-hearted effort while the population carries on its merry making is a moral disaster
Friar Hilarius
THE DUKE: I would like to know what is dignified and noble about fighting and dying under the flag of a foreign country in order to murder the citizens of a third country? And I fail to understand the inherent nobility of a man spending the rest of his life in extreme pain because some lame-brained politician wants to sacrifice Oz troops to keep America happy.
Australia is a strange country, as no doubt you read in my original comment, Australians were magnificently brave when fighting for England and to a lesser extent for America. Yet John Curtin, during WWII, had to introduce conscription in order to force Australians to fight for their own country. If anything is filthy it is this fact. This is not a made up statistic the information should be readily available on-line.
Gees Runs, that’s a bit harsh. Did Major Dick Whittington give you that much grief? And to think the girls thought you looked so cute in your army cadet uniform.
Goodness me Guy:
To compare John Faulkner with Philip Ruddock is obscene, a calumny and a disgrace. Should it come to a position where Faulkner turns into a fascist vegetable like Ruddock, then we’ll all have extraordinary cause for concern. But it hasn’t happened yet and I’d trust Faulkner to prevent it happening.
Paul Hodgson
>or would you prefer we turn a blind eye to regime led atrocities and continue on with our blessed lives?<
Get real. There have been more regime atrocities committed by the USA & before it, other colonising Empires. than by anybody else.
I guess in medieval times & before, at least kings & emperors led their own troops into battle against the troops of the enemy. Now wars are conducted increasingly by mercenaries & by remote controlled devices. In the USA they are training more remote controlled drone operators than they are pilots. Their "pin-point" precision is laughable. But dusky skinned civilians are "collateral damage". Wedding parties hit by accident are "collateral damage". Since Hitler & Bomber Harris mass bombings of civilians have been OK. Dresden, Tokyo, most of North Korea, Hiroshima & Nagasaki- OK. Abu Ghraib- Oh Deah -pity they took piccis. (Just a few rogue elements. really.) Extraordinary rendition- OK.
Just what exactly do you term "regime led atrocities"? Who funded the overthrow of Allende & installed Pinochet in his place. Who got rid of Sukarno & installed Suharto in his place. Who got rid of Mossadegh & installed the Shah in his place?
"By Edward S. Herman
Coverage of the fall of Suharto reveals with startling clarity the ideological biases and propaganda role of the mainstream media. Suharto was a ruthless dictator, a grand larcenist and a mass killer with as many victims as Cambodia's Pol Pot. But he served U.S. economic and geopolitical interests, was helped into power by Washington, and his dictatorial rule was warmly supported for 32 years by the U.S. economic and political establishment. The U.S. was still training the most repressive elements of Indonesia's security forces as Suharto's rule was collapsing in 1998, and the Clinton administration had established especially close relations with the dictator ("our kind of guy," according to a senior administration official quoted in the New York Times, 10/31/95)."
Who has The School of the Americas trained in "regime led atrocities"?
Venise - your comment insinuates that every single digger has not died for a noble cause. As for being a murderer, I would never go there. My greatgrandfather went to WW1 and WW2, my grandfather went to WW2, my father went to Vietnam and my cousin has been to Iraq.
People who continue to vilify the Vietnam Vets sicken me. They returned only to be called “baby killers” and then have red paint thrown all over them. If I ever met one of those trolls I’d have no hesitation to lay them flat on their back. They make me sick to the core.
The Vietnam war was only 20 years after the end of WW2. There were still alot of people in parliament and the wider electorate that were still thankful towards America. Without American force in the air, Japan would have overrun the diggers. This is a fact.
We have no right to determine whether sacrificed lives died for a noble cause or not. A lot of diggers, like my grandfather and great grandfather, actually volunteered for WW2 for what they deemed to be a worthwhile and noble cause which was widely thought at the time - to protect Australia from Japanese attack.
Tilso “the death-cult is just getting stronger every year” and others could do with a bit of social historical perspective. For many years in Australia all traffic, not just trams, would pull over to the side of the road and stop for two minutes at 11 am.
THE DUKE - “If I ever met one of those trolls I’d have no hesitation to lay them flat on their back. Uhm! I think you might find, that it’s attitudes like yours that most anti-war people are against. So much inner violence? Scary!
THE Duke - “Liz45 - I think you get too many facts from conspiracy theory led documentaries that are directed by university media students.” I think that perhaps, I’ve lived longer than you; have seen and spoken to people who are victims of those “conspiracy led documentaries”? Or could I take notice of journalists who were in these areas before, during and after said activities.
If you believe everything that comes out of govt, security organisations, the White House, the Pentagon and other places, then I suggest you get real and off your bum and watch some of those documentaries. Go and talk to people from these countries!
I think you’re so tied up with aggro and violence, that you can’t see past those who are allowed to act that way - the military, and you probably support the police having water cannon, taser guns and other powers too!
THE DUKE - Have you watched any of these, or are you just exercising your usual patriarchal and patronising attitude to women? Either disagree with viable alternate to yours or shut up!
“alternatives” to yours! Your attitude is so predicatable it’s boring!
so you think it is ok to call people “baby killer” and also throw red paint on them??
No inner violence here, I just don’t like cowards with no respect - thats all. I have seen first hand what vietnam vets have been through ‘at no fault of their own’ and for your information, I have no problem with conscientious objectors.
I was very offended in the word “baby killer” which is x1000 worse than “nigger”, “coon”, “abo” or “gook”. I think most people would be…..?
I am very selective in political documentaries Liz45 although the last won I watched suggested 9/11 was orchestrated by the US government.
usual patronising attitude to women? what are you on about? I do agree with alternatives Liz4, but I would never take pot shots at people who have served their country.
It is the public that elects the politicians who send young men and women to fight wars
It is the public that then gets on with its apathetic, greed driven living while others do the hard lifting for them
It is the lazy, apathetic public that continues watching overpaid sporting “heroes” while the real heroes risk their lives in the army, navy and air force
There should be no more sport or entertainment of any kind until the “war” ends
Either the war is worth everyone’s attention and involvement or it should be stopped
Friar Hilarius
Guy - “Even the Pacific war began as a European encirclement of Japan, as a way of maintaining European colonial dominance. The propaganda subsequently used to inspire people to fight turned it into a race war — the ultimate dehumanisation of the Japanese as subhuman, made it easy to use the atom bomb against them.”
On face value, I do not agree with this however, I apologise if I have read it wrong. Don’t forget that the Japanese slaughtered many 1000’s of Chinese and then the western world put in place a trade embargo. The Japanese economy subsequently collapsed and they then deemed it necessary to invade other countries to acquire resources to facilitate an economic recovery. Japan, Germany et al then signed a Memorandum of Mutual Understanding (or something to that effect).
Whilst the Pacific War was infact a war that we fought under our own flag, I often ponder what would have happened if most of our troops were kept on the Western Front as were the wishes of blue blood Churchill who was prepared to sacrifice Australia in order to save the Kingdom. We have Curtin, General MacArthur and his american troops to thank for saving our bacon. History has proven that Japan did no have its sights on Australia, but who knows what ould have happened if the Japanese figured out that Australia was expendable.
As for the atom bomb… historians can debate that effectiveness although Japan was already on their knees when the bomb was dropped. The Japanese soldiers were pretty hard core but sub human? plenty of books to form an opinion here.
I have no problem with Shrines and think they are important - us humans have had a fascination with these things for 1000’s of years. I have always attended ANZAC Day marches but unfortunately it is losing its appeal and integrity with grandchildren etc marching. I am not sure what ANZAC day will look like in 20 years but I hope it is something that we continue to celebrate. Certainly on the AFL calendar, as you would know, it is one of the best and most fierce weekends of the minor round .
Whilst defence force recruitment is and has been low for a long time now, it still offers a viable alternative for a number of school leavers. Certainly, the degree/officer program they have is highly rated. Whilst I grew up in a warless period of the 80’s and 90’s, I’d like to know if recruitment drops further once people work out that “yes, you may go to war sir”.
Guy,
The ADF offers a lot to country kids from families who can not afford the educational opportunities more readily available in cities. I myself faced the choice of working in a sawmill or, joining the Army.
‘They didn’t die believing in Britain, or running like the wind — they died as everyone dies in such circumstances, shitting their pants and crying for their mothers, wondering what the hell they’d done.
The above comment shows that you do not really understand what soldiers face but yet, you have no doubt enjoyed commenting on…as a soldier, you die for your mate beside you. Don’t worry about that though…it is obviously something that you will never have the guts to face up to.
John
John is correct
However, the offer of education to recruits is only a sweetener to enable the rest of us to get on with our selfish living, while young people risk their lives for us
During war time all sport and entertainment should be cancelled and the resources so released should be directed to the war effort
The fact that the term “war effort” has gone out of fashion is clear evidence that the selfish majority could not give a stuff about the heroic minority doing the heavy lifting for them in the Armed Foreces
Friar Hilarius
If people want a war without casualties and killing they might consider a War on Poverty
Friar Hilarius
John Roberts
you seem to be agreeing with the point I made - that the only way to keep an army at force levels is to offer people inducements in the form of education.
So people who cant afford to access a better education become the cannon fodder. Not exactly something to feel grateful for.
Why not raise education funding and stop spending money on foreign wars?
I don’t doubt soldiers die for their mates - but it’s a shitty situation to put someone in, fighting a futile war and then feeling the need to sacrifice yourself out of a (genuine) commitment to your comrades. The state using the best human charactersitics for its own purposes. Sounds like a death cult to me.
There’s another alternative FRIAR. Make the politicians, their wives/husbands and kids over 18 lead the way - on the front line, not visiting amid great secrecy like they do now - gutless wonders. Then we might see what wars are really important, and what ones are to get rid of regimes that get in the way of capitalism’s quest(read the US) to steal resources etc. Latin America, Iraq & Afghanistan spring readily to mind. the Vietnam War started over a lie, and 6 Presidents kept the lie going. The Vietnamese lost over a million people - 30,000 died as a result of the CIA etc. Read ‘American Torture’ ; it takes into account the period from just after WW2 until a couple of years ago. It’s written by an American. The recent ‘news’ re the CIA’s use of using broken bottles to rape detainees puts the whole bloody travesty in its real perspective. As for 9/11, there’s still too many questions left unanswered?
Prior to the War on Poverty, it would be prudent to work out why the poverty is allowed to happen in the first place - by whom and why? 11 million kids under the age of 5 die each year through poverty - it’s a damned disgrace, and we help it happen by allowing capitalism to stop too many occupations like farming etc, and the poorer nations can’t compete - they’re deliberately pushed aside. Nike over local for example - even Alpaca farming/textiles have ceased in poor communities for example. People may argue that it’s complex, it’s not, it’s just greed!
Great article, Guy, and the comments give some food for thought. There are some very interesting contradictions at play here in people’s various perspectives. No one who believes strongly about this issue one way or another seems to be able to overcome their predjudices enough to look at this objectively. Good luck to anyone participating in the “murderer” vs “coward” debate. There is no way either group has the right of it with attitudes like this.
Guy, BRAVO!
Only put better by that wonderful WW1 poet, Wilfred Owen
Dulce et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_Est
Thank you Guy.
I well remember an English Army Officer telling me that when they liberated Stanley in the Falklands that many locals were disgusted by the way they had treated the Argentineans upon whom they had relied for almost everything that they needed to survive in that far off South Atlantic Island and with whom they had previously enjoyed cordial relations.
The now have to get most staples from Britain, the cost of living has soared and their once peaceful island is now a garrison.
Maggie Thatcher obviously forgot to add that into her election speech at the following polls.
Next time we have an invitation to join some spurious foreign war, let the progeny of the politicians, public servants, brave protester bashing police be conscripted into an expeditionary force and be the first into battle.
Let us leave our well trained and professional armed services at home to defend this land we love should we need them to rather than waste the life of any of them in some corrupt war in some foreign land to which we owe nothing.
Troops are the loyal tools of the public
Sadly the public is confused, indolent & indifferent
The people have no clear idea whether they want a war or not
They only want not to be bothered by it in their daily living
War is too serious to be ignored
We are all at fault
Friar Hilarius
PS Write to your TV News station and demand that no other news be broadcast except progress of the war. The Australian Parliament should meet in Kabul for the duration.
How many British soldiers were killed in the First Afghan War 1839-1842?
The neatest correct answer wins a red poppy
Friar Hilarius
Very few Friar.
If memory serves me right most causalities were Indian troops and civilians.
Great piece Guy, thanks.
Correction
How many British and Indian troops and civilians (fighting for or supporting the British policy) were killed in the First Afghan War 1839-1842?
Was it worth the effort?
Friar Hilarius
The following is one of the most dignified pieces of writing I have seen in a long lifetime
Congratulations Guy for your intellectual integrity :-
[Quote] But you’re right - I was remiss in not making the point that there are effectively two ceremonies going on - the private commemoration of loss, and the uses of it by the state, and a sentence to that effect would have made it a more rounded article. Thanks for making the point.
In this admission you highlight all the more the poignancy of those who manipulate the good motives of the young for political ends, as compared with the loss experienced by those who are maipulated and their families
The commemoration of deeply felt loss ought never to be misused
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Friar.
In the infamous retreat from Kabul I believe only Dr William Brydon survived out of some 16,000 troops and civilians.
The Afghans took the art of treachery to its very highest level, a habit that it practices with an almost religious zeal to this day.
Very few nations have repelled the might of the British once but the Afghans managed it twice, a lesson that will be repeated should we be so stupid as to pursue our ridiculous and reckless ambitions there now.
A war with no valid purpose and one we have no chance of winning.
Just as the Vietnamese conquered the mighty US of A
Yet the niggling question remains … does appeasement and fear of conflict encourage monsters to rule and expand their power? Why were Pol Pot and Idi Amin and the Ruandan genocide not stopped?
It is now believed that Hitler could easily have been stopped militarily while he was building his war machine from the ruins of hyperinflation and the middle class poverty and unemployment which hyperinflation caused
Probably any time up to the well attended Berlin games a military peace-keeping effort could have shackled Hitler’s power, and restored elections to the Reichstag … with whatever non-military solutions that might have generated
There was certainly a fear of German military resurgence, but there was neither the political unity, nor the political will to enforce a lawful solution to the German economic collapse.
Why? Primarily because of the deeply ingrained memory of the horrors and losses of WW1 … the war to end all wars.
The cost of stopping Hitler in his tracks at the right time would have been miniscule compared to the cost in lives and resources ultimately required
There was simply not the will and the “peace lovers” of that time have much to answer for
Churchill was right about Germany though treated as a fool until too late … and Chamberlain was wrong in his hopes for peace, though well motivated
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Liz 45
It is not just the politicians. We all worship at the shopping malls.
The not for profit model is a good one … but it won’t be adopted while the left and right in politics engage in perpetual intellectual warfare
The left and right among the public can do the work of the politicians for them by agreeing to support every not for profit venture possible … from genuine farmers markets to open univerisities … to not for profit health care and every other form of not for profit activity
The capitalists fear a spending strike more than anything
Less use of credit and more savings would scare the hell out of the capitalists
Use the savings to support not for profit activities with fixed interest bonds that recognise risk in the start-up phase of new ventures such as infrastructure if need be
The unemployed bankers can join not for profit credit unions … and the unemployed stockbrokers can work in soup kitchens
Only when the majority agrees that savings not debt are the solution and that simple living beats grossly excessive consumption, will the capitalists be brought to account
I speak as a right wing radical
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Another brilliantly insightful piece. Rundle is such a rare commodity in the Australian commentariate that I struggle to name anyone who comes near to him. The reason why I subscribe to crikey..
I am forming a new non profit email group called “Life After Debt”
If anyone would like to join and discuss how to avoid, escape or minimise debt please email me :-
afterdebt@gmail.com
Friar Hilarius
PS Membership is free and if a small subscription is ever considered (not now planned) it would be used to help members escape debt.
“Yet the niggling question remains … does appeasement and fear of conflict encourage monsters to rule and expand their power? Why were Pol Pot and Idi Amin and the Ruandan genocide not stopped?
It is now believed that Hitler could easily have been stopped militarily while he was building his war machine from the ruins of hyperinflation and the middle class poverty and unemployment which hyperinflation caused”
You seem to have forgotten the greatest killer of our time, our old friend and ally Joe Stalin.
We may well have saved millions more lives had we allied ourselves with Hitler using our military and economic influence to moderate his genocidal attitude toward the Jews and at the same time attack expansionist Communism at its source.
It is now estimated that over 76 million Russians succumbed to the vagaries of old Joe, to that add millions of Europeans and Asians most of whom could have been saved if we had the forethought to let Moscow have the second nuclear device instead of Nagasaki when they were still on their knees after the war in Europe.
If we must interfere in other repressive regimes, let it be by crushing economic and military sanctions and not invasions which inevitably turn the entire population against us, the invaders.
The Iran Iraq war, had the USA not intervened by supplying Iraq and Iran with some very nasty weapons, may well have ended with both states being unable to be a danger to anyone else which would have allowed us to step in and help rebuild non military infrastructure and thus create friendship with both regimes and stabilized the area.
As previously stated the only war we need to become involved in is the war on poverty and hunger.
LL
I am sure you are right about Russia
There was just the little question of getting across Europe
Perhaps we could have done more if Germany had been with us and not against us
Friar Hilarius
LL
Also remember that many in the West thought Stalin was kind loving Uncle Joe doing his best for the peasants and workers
The loony left in the West didn’t exactly help the cause of preventing fratricide in the USSR
Those who were not in the “loony” group on the Left could and should have known better
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
I struggle to understand why the morality of a war is compared to another war after the fact. |I can see why morality is brought up in order to stop the war but after the fact aren’t all wars hell?
Dear Liz45 and Friar
Am enjoying your comments, thank you. Just one thing in relation to the possibility of stopping Hitler early. I saw the excellent film with Albert Finney channelling Churchill, The Gathering Storm and the impression given by that film is that Britain’s army were not in a position to attack even if they wanted to when Churchill wanted to. I only have that reference so would be glad to be corrected.
Sorry Friar I was in the middle of my last post when I saw your debt post.
I have existed without debt for ten years. Just say goodbye to a social life. Work sleep work sleep.
Heathdon
You are absolutely right … but the British Navy was strong, and together with France and the USA and Canada an allied effort would have succeeded … Russia too perhaps
Instead France and the USA were too busy trying to extract blood from a stone in the form of reparations, long after Britain had urged their cessation
No wonder Hitler gained traction
Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Heathdon
On debt your experiences could be helfpul to those still struggling with debt
The solutions are never easy, but simplifying priorities is a key
You might well be a good mentor
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
afterdebt@gmail.com
Correction
“You are absolutely right” should have been a comment to Liz
Absolutely right that Britain could not have acted alone
The problem was that the League of Nations was a fizzer due to international rivalry
and fear of joint action
Tout ca change, tout ca c’est la meme chose
Friar Hilarius
“Instead France and the USA were too busy trying to extract blood from a stone in the form of reparations, long after Britain had urged their cessation”
I agree!
Had it not been the greed of the USA (who were late arrivals anyway “The Lusitania”) and the revenge of the hapless French, Germany could have been rebuilt (such as the wonderful job the allies did in Japan after WWII) and WWII avoided altogether.
I also agree Friar that the loony left in Britain would have been a problem (amazingly almost all from the upper classes)
Friar
I don’t think I could help anybody as I said I barely subsist.
Guy, I think it’s one of your best pieces. The closing paragraph is a great truth.
I don’t think military service is a death cult though. Young regular soldiers don’t join up to “die for their country”, but because normal life is too soft for them. “My reason is simple,” one told me, “I just don’t fit in on civvy street.”
It’s a bit like the John Mellencamp song: I want to live the real life, I want to live my life close to the bone. The heightened and even intimate risk of death goes with the territory. They tend to see themselves being among those who make it home, having gained and shared something that might lead to a deeper appreciation of being alive. It’s reality (and the enemy) that takes exception to this assumption. The older soldiers know this very well.
Heathdon
I have added you to The Friary prayer list
I know a little of how you feel
Peace be with you
Friar Hilarius
James
I heard recently :-
(1) At the beginning of the 20th Century only 1 in 100 children went to high school … most went to work as soon as they legally could (early teens) & were responsible for bringing in money to the family
(2) The word teenager first appeared in the Readers Digest in 1941
The idea of no adult challenges in the “teen” years is pernicious and relatively new
You are right if you believe that young people seek challenge
We don’t offer enough … a war on poverty should provide plenty … if we were serious
Friar Hilarius
PS I can’t vouch for the 1 in 100 statistic … or the country in question … but it sounded like the UK or Australia was being discussed
As a kid I remember being told that ‘Lest we forget’ meant that we shouldn’t forget the horror of war - history forgotten is soon to be repeated. Isn’t the lesson of Rememberance Day (and Anzac Day) that war is awful, and we shouldn’t be at war?
Another thing WWI did was to blow the Western Enlightenment to kingdom come. It never recovered. The century that followed was dominated by competing forms of fascism, and the relegation of science to a thing that scary people do in ivory towers; ordinary daily life went back to being dominated by superstition. Western civilisation before and after the war are practically different planets.
Kirk
I am not able to speak for those who served … but if I were to speculate I guess that many would agree with you
The problem that seems to concern Guy is those who manipulate the memory process to give some credibility to current operations
The question of whether current events justify any kind of intervention is complex … but I am absolutely certain of one thing that a country like Australia should either be at war or at peace but never both at the same time. War is too serious for anyone to feel that they have no part to play.
If everyone thought about the consequences of involvement, including the “collateral damage” there would be no spending on anything but finishing the war and establishing the peace in the shortest possible time
The best way to end the war is an long discussion ranging from quitting to doing more
What is certain for me is that those of us who carry on as though there is no war have a great deal of responsibility for everything that happens … but we don’t accept that responsibility because we are too busy enjoying ourselves while others take the risks
The argument that our “peaceful way of life” is being made possible by the military does not wash with me. We are not entitled to anything but total austerity while lives are at risk.
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
THE DUKE: Do you think you are the only Australian to have lost family in war? Does the present generation of young adults have to cast themselves into yet another Vietnam/Afghanistan in order to appease the blood of your grand-parents?
It would make just as much sense to support the Aztec belief whereby every day of every year saw people being put on a rock slab and having their hearts ripped out by their priests. To satisfy a god, of course.
Your view of WWII is quite different to mine. I do not believe the Japanese were ever interested in northern Australia. To land troops with full baggage and war materiél would have been impossible. (It was no accident that after Darwin they didn’t come back) And they scarcely had time to develop a few mines to fund their army. What would have been the point? No oil for their planes. Nothing but bare, land.
Then there was the Oz plan for the Brisbane Line, which was as sound a piece of thinking as I’ve come across. Also, I’ve read quite a lot of the WWII Japanese High Command, and to say that Oz was a bowl of hot sashimi would, if my memory serves me correctly, be a slight over-statement.
I don’t wish to be rude, but you seem to be a product of a generation whose guiding star was Colonel Blimp.
I repeat, there is nothing noble about dying in any war, but dying to defend ones own country is neccessary. There is nothing admirable about dying to defend countries other than our own. If you can give me one rational reason for Oz troops dying in Vietnam I will be astonished.
Venise, “If you can give me one rational reason for Oz troops dying in Vietnam I will be astonished.”
The “domino theory” of the communist threat to the world is now discredited in the mainstream view, to the extent that if somebody warns of a threat and I say “domino theory”, people will laugh and agree how silly the person is trying to scare us. Except that the domino theory never was satisfactorily refuted, it was laughed at while countries continued to fall to communist revolutions remarkably like dominoes.
I’m not saying Vietnam was a just war, or a good judgement, or that it was necessary to stop everything and fight communism. But people at the time thought it was.
There’s also a common view that Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy was short-sighted cowardice, given Hitler’s obvious crimes against humanity and Czechoslovakia being clearly just a warm-up. Not fair; Chamberlain wasn’t a coward at all. He just believed, as you do, that nations should mind their own business. Yet Chamberlain’s restraint gave Hitler the breathing space he needed, and almost cost Britain its freedom a few years later.
Easy to judge in hindsight, is all I’m saying. Meanwhile, in the the ethos of the professional soldier, to follow only those orders that he agrees with would be mutiny, nothing less. How sad it is, then, that the consensus of professional soldiers who went to Vietnam was that they could have won it if politics back home had not betrayed them. And history might have judged a war that was won a lot less harshly than it has judged a war that was lost.
Venise - apologies, I was a little bit hurt by a comment yesterday which is very close to my heart and witnessed first hand the life that Vietnam Vets have lived since they returned home. Maybe I am reading you wrong and vice versa. My view is simply, regardless of the context of the conflict (i.e Vietnam, Iraq, Korea), any diggers life that is lost deserves to be respected inline with any other conflict.
Dying for a noble cause is something for debate. I’m not sure if the Brits would agree that they did not fight and die for a noble cause, I’m sure the township of Coventry would disagree aswell - even the people in Darwin. Whilst German ships circled the UK for up to month readying for a full scaled invasion I am sure many Brits new that their involvement in WW2 was for a noble cause i.e to stop the german juggernaut.
Is it noble for a Digger to die under a foreign flag? WW1 and WW2 were different eras and different times. We were very much a young country with a monarchist persuasion. Back in WW1 and WW2 it was in our best interests to protect the Monarchy. As for Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, valid arguments can be made against our involvement but any life lost in uniform deserves the respect of any WW1 and WW2 victims.
Did I agree with the Vietnam War? nope, never said I did and I know more than the average person on Vietnam. But I would also never spit on someone that chose to fight in Vietnam in the same way that I would never spit on a digger currently fighting in Afghanistan which is arugably as insignificant as the Vietnam War. I would also never have the guts or be cold enough to tell someones mother and father that their son did not die for a noble cause.
I am not saying whatsoever that Australia was a target of the Japanese and infact, literature these days evidences that Australia was never part of the wider Japanese plan. But, given Churchills poor valuation of Australia as ‘the convict colony’, if our troops had stayed fighting on the Western Front (as was his wish) and some parts of the middle east - history ‘may’ have been very different for us. Curtin and the USA deserve ALL the credit.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. [John 15:13]
But also we are to love our enemies … said the same teacher
All war is a failure to win the peace
Grievances grow and one side engages in aggession or both do
Human pride and lack of ability to compromise in the interest of the common good lie at the heart of war
Then we dehumanise the enemy to justify our actions
The more things change the more things remain the same
Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to re-learn them
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
JAMES McDONALD: The domino theory was bullshit and the only people who fell for it were the sort of people who watch commercial television stations. Another group of people who believed it were the extreme right-wing. ie those people whose sons hadn’t drawn the dreaded marble.
Just in case no one knows what I’m talking about: Not only was Vietnam a totally immoral war, and it was a war we had no business fighting in. But Oz troops were killed to protect land that benefited them not at all. Nor was Vietnam was a threat to Oz at all. Yes this was the lie uttered by the politicians. Paradoxically it happened at a time when Australians were becoming better educated and more sophisticated. Not a lot, but enough to allow a lot of scepticism to rattle around.
The ultimate indignity was that the non-professional soldiers were entered in an obscene lottery. If you drew the wrong marble you went sent to fight in a foreign war on behalf of a foreign power (the USA) who were/are, like the Japanese during WWII fighting for an empire, at a time when empires were out of date. How many American families have to suffer their sons being slaughtered in a so- called ‘holy’ mission? To bring democracy to the very people who don’t want it anyway. They may well want it at some stage in the future, once they have recovered from the irony of having it thrust upon them by war.
I’m sorry James, you will have to do a lot better than that to justify your foreign war.
Yes we need armed services just in case we are attacked by another nation. No we don’t have to fear Indonesia, or any other nation, from attacking us. Or, perhaps you are afraid that Tasmania or New Zealand are plotting against us?
I am, quite surprised at the amount of educated (ie Crikey readers) people who believe in wars that do not concern our nation. It is to be hoped you would cheerfully sacrifice you kids, when the time comes?
THE DUKE: Agree absolutely. Churchill was an over-rated actor. And yes he was utterly against bringing Oz troops out of North Africa. But they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Oz troops are there to defend THIS country. Not Korea, not Vietnam, not Iraq, nor Afghanistan. Especially Afghanistan. It would make just as much sense to put them through a mincing machine.
I am sorry if I said something to offend you. However, I believe what I have said with total and complete passion and I will defend my belief until the proverbial ‘cows’ come home.
I don’t see how one can separate WWI, WWII from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. War is not negotiable. And with the exception of the War in the Pacific none of the above were to protect Australia. Yes the politicians were able to fill the ignorant with fear but the scare- tactic started to fail in Vietnam.
End of lecture.
I agree with alot of what you are saying Venice.
But what is your proposal for countries that undertake mass genocide? do you propose that we just watch and just say”ouch, glad thats not happening in my country…!”. Obviously the UN can’t help given they basically carry spud guns (refer the genocide in the Republic of Rwanda). Unfortunately diplomacy and ecomomic sanctions do not always work, wish they did but they don’t. And then if they don’t work are we supposed to say “carry on… atleast we tried…!”.
I am perplexed and I admit that I don’t know the answer, how we can sit back and ignore the attrocities of a regime (Polpot, Hussein, Mao etc) but then also argue against taking a stand and trying to do something about it, whether that means a war or not - and, nobody likes War.
Like the US or not, and they have done alot of wrong things, they are the only country in the world that I can think of that is prepared to take a stand against something that they believe in.
I tend to agree with The Duke in some ways
We act if a husband is violent to a wife … the police will knock the door down
The police will chase criminals across regional boundaries within most countries
We go to water when we see violence across a national boundary
The only thing I would add is that crossing an international boundary to stop violence requires :-
(1) A stronger military force than that defending the borders
(2) Political will
(3) Ideally international co-operation
(4) Ideally speed and surprise
It seems that (4) is incompatible with (2) and (3) given the current apathetic state of the world towards protection of basic human rights
We don’t even care about clean drinking water in other countries, so why would we bother about a little thing like violence?
The truth is we don’t care enough about winning the peace, so we let violence proliferate just because we are scared of national borders and we doubt the integrity of the forces engaging in the peace keeping
If Russia or China or Iran were to cross borders we would yell blue murder, but if we do it that’s OK?
So where are the leaders in ALL countries with the moral fibre to act in concert?
Maybe George Bush was right in principle but wrong in practice when acting alone with a few friends, but we wouldn’t want others to do the same
Empires thrive on peace keeping when they are strong … and go to water when they are weak
We are seeing the might of America decline … nature abhors a vacuum
Who will fill the space not so gloriously occupied by America?
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Venise, I’m not sure how thoroughly you read what I said.
The domino theory, while extremely unpopular with those opposed to the war, was sound. One of the best predictors of having a communist revolution was having a next-door neighbor with a communist revolution.
Chamberlain’s policy of refraining from attacking Germany was also ideologically sound. Even though in retrospect it may have cost millions of lives, I would not knock Chamberlain for following his principles and responding the best he could to the information available to him.
Whether the onslaught of communism was sufficiently bad to justify the last resort of war is another question. There was a great sense of regret that we had missed a chance to stop Stalin and millions had paid the price. The Soviet Bolsheviks were killers to rival Hitler, and they had more success at ethnic cleansing, successfully erasing whole languages and cultures from the face of the earth before they were finished. Their method of conquering countries was more subtle and effective than that of the Nazis. It may look like paranoia from our vantage now, and it was always going to look like folly to the counter-culture in the universities, but to a lot of people it was very scary in 1965.
The way the Vietnam war was fought was a disgrace. The black lottery was a disgrace. The political half-heartedness and mixed objectives of those running the Vietnam war should have given rise to a review afterwards of how the command structure is organised, and of whether to go to war at all. Instead it set a pattern of the NATO allies setting themselves up to fail and making bad situations worse while pretending war is just something on the nightly news, just as Friar Hilarius says. Spooks had far too much control of strategy (the WW2 winners had made the tragic mistake of letting their spook shops run peacetime foreign policy) so Vietnam was also a shadow game.
Once again, I do not say Vietnam was a just war. I think it was a great tragedy, from which we have not fully recovered, and which may have done us even more lasting damage that it did to Vietnam. But I also think the soldiers who went there deserve just as much credit for doing their duty as veterans of any other war. And those who sent our troops there were not after land or oil, they honestly thought that Soviet-style communism was taking over the world and the free world had to draw a line somewhere and stop it.
James
Your message is very perceptive. Only with all the benefit of hindsight are we able to see what was not necessarily seen with such clarity at the time. This is no excuse if wrong decisions were made by those in power … but it helps to EXPLAIN why they did what they did.
That we now reject some explanations current at the time does not alter the importance of understanding why people did what they did, especially as it might relate to those things we are deciding currently.
I totally agree with your view of the conduct of the Vietnam war by the Americans. The dreadful concept of body counts was reminiscent of the cannon fodder methods of WW1, made worse by B52 bombing raids which killed the “innocent” and the “guilty” indiscriminately.
I also agree that our agents, the Australian troops, were the wrong target for the anti-war militants.
The interesting point which comes out of all this is the extraordinary lengths that Empires and Imperial Allies will go to in changing peaceful human beings into killers
The manipulation of the emotions, principles and the physical strength of young people to transform them into efficient and even unthinking killers is a process that has operated since the days of the Roman Empire. It partly consists of demonising the enemy, and viewing them at the highest level as lacking any mercy in the field of battle.
The “kill or be killed” syndrome lurking perhaps somewhere in all our minds is developed and refined to a high point. [I can not predict what I might do if someone threatened a child and I was in a position to stop them with force if necessary.]
This “protective” instinct is transformed by the military into making people into efficient killing machines. All this is merely the tool of those making political decisions … and that ultimately means you and me.
To blame the tool for our own democratic decisions is indeed the height of hypocrisy
If we fail to educate ourselves to understand the issues properly, because we are too busy getting on with enjoying our own lives, we are no different to the German people who had a vague idea that the Nazis were not particularly nice but did nothing, or who were rendered powerless to act by superior force. This is why the rule of law is so vital.
The only thing necessary for the success of evil is for good men to see it and do nothing
For the religious I commend Matthew 25 31-46
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
THE DUKE: What of the countries who engage in mass genocide? I seem to remember America doing nothing about Pol Pot. We, The Duke, are not the world’s policeman. If you were patrolling an area of a beach, one where large notices warned the public not to swim because of sharks and crocodiles, and these creatures were visibly encroaching on the beach-bearing in mind the speed with which a crocodile can move, and somewhere out of sight a violent fight breaks out as a man thrashes his wife. Do you promptly forget about the small children who have been playing too close to the edge of the water, and go rushing off to save the fair maiden?
If you do you should be clapped in irons. Your job was to look out for those kids playing too close to the water; not to go off with noble heroics to protect the fair maiden. Which is an analogy of what happened in the Pacific during WWII.
I’ve gotta go now I’ll be back ASAP.
THE DUKE - I find it amazing, that your sensibilities are so fragile as to react so strongly re Vietnam vets, but you can’t find it in your heart, head or wherever, to utter any sympathies for those murdered Vietnamese. It’s as though the pro-war/ glorifying war people only recognise death, dying and suffering of their own ‘kind’. Weren’t the people of Vietnam human beings?
The US still insists on ignoring the horrific toll of Agent Orange, which shows more about their attitudes to humanity. Demean, debase and humiliate a people and you can then go ahead and do as you wish to them. The people of Vietnam are still suffering the effects of Agent Orange, as the people of Iraq/Afghanistan and others have and will continue to suffer the effects of Depleted Uranium bombs. We’re so bereft of any form of decency in this country due to remaining silent on the revolting use of uranium - our troops will probably start suffering the effects of 300+ DU bombs in Iraq. The Army will then commence another decade of denials and ridicules. Same old, same old!
Thank you Friar but may I propose there would be somebody more needy of your prayers.To papraphrase i think Oscar Wilde: some of us are looking at the stars and some of us realise how interesting and beautiful the gutter can be.
Heathdon
There is always someone more needy
This does not exclude you from being considered in prayers
I am curious … what makes your particular “gutter” so attractive to you?
If all is well I can recommend a hymn to celebrate that !
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Liz
A significant percentge of Vietnamese veterans are traumatised by exactly the matters you raise
I doubt that anyone in this forum has a compassion deficit for anyone who has suffered anywhere at any time from the consequences of wars
The problem is how best to express that deficit in ways which are effective
Aggression towards each other verbally is another form of war
All wars start with aggressive ideas
Ways to avoid another needless war are the key issue
We can wring our hands quite rightly until we are blue in the face about the supposed worst perpetrators, but in the end ideas and action to stop and prevent wars are more important
The hand wringing (which I do not criticise) may well be an essential first step but the key question is :-
“What do we do and where do we go from here?”
Protests were effective in bringing the Vietnam war to its agonising and belated end, but I suspect that in today’s consumer driven society “Who cares?”
What actions do you suggest to bring wars to an end?
My suggested first action is to put this country on a War Footing, closing all forms of entertainment and extravagant consumption, and possibly banning the importation of all non-essential goods until the current war ends. The Australian Parliament should meet only in Kabul for the duration of hostilities. Can you assist in bringing this about?
Are you willing to do something constructive to concentrate the minds of the public on these issues?
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Friar, I agree that if we are at war we should not let it be out of mind and out of sight. A severely increased taxation level during wartime as well as a (non-compulsory) call for one minute’s silence at a certain time every day would be appropriate.
Cancelling of all entertainment seems a bit severe, and would surprise the Russians who were extremely proud of the fact that their ballet did not stop even during the German bombing raids.
Friar
You dont think the world is interesting and beautiful? Everyday is a new revelation of how amazing life is and how lucky we are. Sure there are bad things but without them how would we recognise the good.
James
I would exempt ballet from closure if all the artists were wearing their military uniforms and army issue boots
Heathdon
You are fortunate if your cup is half full … for much of the world it is almost empty
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
JAMES McDONALD: Re your remark about the build-up of fascism. Perhaps the build-up may have been averted if the Allies-especially the Americans-had not insisted-at the end of WWI-that the Germans had to accept unconditional surrender. Think of it! Those words make me shiver. To impose that on a nation whose arrogance and pride were impossible anyway was surreal.
FRIAR HILARIUS: Please don’t send me quotes from a book which is three thousand years old. Also religion has caused half the wars in the world, and it was written by illiterate shepherds who passed it over to scribes. The end result was used by generations of priests to hobble the yokels. And if you believe Jesus was the son of god you have a serious psychological problem. Tell me; who was Jesus’ paternal grandfather?
VENISE
(1) How do you calculate 3000?
(2) Far more people have been killed by non-religious aggressors
(3) Religion has caused no wars … only the perversion of religon (false teaching)
(4) Which illiterate shepherds have you identified?
(5) Priests seek to free people from slavery to sin … this is the opposite of hobbling
(6) If I have a psychological problem (per your statement) it is one I share with many
(7) If you would like to know the father of Joseph you might like to do your own research
(8) If you are asking who is the Father of God the Father I leave you to study it and decide
(9) If nothing else has been achieved in wars it is the freedom to quote from books
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR HILARIUS: even if you were right in some sense that religion has caused no war only false teaching, that does not gainsay the unfortunate fact that religion - like patriotism - seems particularly vulnerable to being misused as a cause for war. Many religions (Quakers a small but most honourable exception) need to be radically reformed to remove their susceptibility to being used to justify war.
Gavin
For 2000 years earthly powers have sought to use the Church for their own ends
That they have done so is a reflection on them … not on the Church
I know of no “susceptibility” in the teachings of Christ
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Ah, FRIAR, another believer preaching that their understanding is the *true* religion! But there are so many popes, priests and pentient who proclaim otherwise. When you manage to expel the warmongering christians from the church I will think less ill of it.
the duke
Posted Wednesday, 11 November 2009 at 8:19 pm | Permalink
“Liz45 - whilst I am sure you were uneducated at that time of your life, I find it utterly offensive to refer or even mention the name “baby killers”. My best friends father was conscripted to Vietnam and survived but only to spend the next 30 years in and out of repatriation hospitals for mental illness as a direct result of the war. He ended his life a few years ago. So, keep that sort of filthy language for your own home.”
I’m sorry about your friend, I really am, but many people went to jail rather than be involved in an immoral war, without any justification or legitimacy. I’ve heard an ex-CIA bloke of about 30 years experience assert, that they knew there were no grounds to invade, but they didn’t want to ‘upset the white house’??If you’d take the time to read and watch some educational videos, you’d realize that it was a horrific abuse of power, weapons and lives. When we started receiving the images of those horrific injuries, executions etc I determined, that my sons would never cause such death and misery to other women’s babies, and I stick by that? Your friend made a conscious decision to keep on with the exercise rather than go to jail - those people had no choice, and nowhere to run? The war stopped in part, due to the american military going on ‘strike’ - they refused to keep on killing!
For every person who suffered as your friend did, there were hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who suffered worse horrors - and some still are! I wonder how many Vietnamese people killed themselves through overwhelming grief and anguish? Then of course, there’s the 30,000 that the yanks killed via the CIA’s interrogation skills!
It’s typical of a male who imposes his alleged superiority, to be so presumptious and insulting to question my educational skills? You don’t have to be real smart to watch pure evil and reject it!Also, isn’t the whole reason for engaging in these bloody activities for ‘our freedoms and democracy’ blah blah? And yet you want to deny me freedom of speech because it offends your sensibilities - for an adult - not innocent kids? Thankfully, none of my kids, now adults joined the killing machine - hopefully my grandkids won’t either.
If this country was in danger, I’d fight to protect it myself, but to invade foreign countries, who are no threat to us, is totally wrong and despicable!We’ve caused millions of deaths, and more refugees in Iraq and Afghanistan! These people are of no danger to us - none whatever! We’ve just created enemies that didn’t exist before. If I watched my whole family get slaughtered, I’d probably seek revenge too! I don’t blame them one bit! Serves us right! We might learn one day! They’ll still hate us when my grandkids have kids! Clever isn’t it?
Yes Gavin Another
I challenge you to find a war mongering Priest in any mainstream Christian Church today, outside the religious right in America which is an unrepresentative (if noisy) minority
Even there many of your war-mongers will stand outside the mainstream … which is easily defined … Mainstream Churches are those which affirm the Nicene Creed … and these cross the boundaries of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant … since all affirm that one Creed thus blowing apart the idea that there is any disunity on matters of first order importance
If there are any “war-mongering” priests their voices are drowned out by the vast majority of maintream Christian Churches and Priests who work every day of their lives for peace
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Friar - I’d be interested in your reasons as to the horrific abuse metered out to women, around the world from men? We hear ad nauseum of the Muslim’s ‘attitude’ to women, while conveniently omitting the fact, that one in three women will be abused in their lifetime in this country and others in the west. The financial cost is over $15 BILLION.(Australia)
Rape of both men and women(and sadly, children) is used by too many countries these days, as just another ‘tool’ to use in war. We still need ‘Reclaim the Night’ rallies in every town and city in the country - western democracy is wonderful isn’t it?
We’re still hearing of priests being charged with horrific crimes against kids. When all this stops for good, then the churches may have some right to the ‘high moral ground’, but until then, I don’t listen to anything they say, and have not the slightest bit of respect for any of them. I don’t know how people can defend them or their brand of so-called christianity - I find it sickening!
Bishop Tom Frame, former chaplain to the Australian ‘defence’ force, supported the invasion of Iraq. He has since repented.
Let’s not go down this road, blaming religioun for all war. Historians widely agree that the 20th century was the bloodiest in history. It was also the first time that atheism became generally socially acceptable. It was also the first time that earthly utopian visions for mankind’s future supplanted religions globally as frameworks for moral thought. None of the aggressors in World War 2 were religiously motivated. Let’s also acknowledge that Pope John Paul played a greater part in bringing down the horrific oppression of the USSR than all the West’s spies put together.
Thank You, James
Gavin … if the brief Shock and Awe had been followed by high levels of internal security, rapid improvement in infrastructure, such as hospitals, school, libraries, universities, and a marked improvement in living standards it is conceivable that even the Iraqi people today might be grateful for the Mission so prematurely said to have been accomplished
In fact the opposite happened. If Tom Frame had something highly beneficial in mind he might have been joined by many others … both religious and and non-religious in believing that the destruction of the initial targets selected might have … on balance … been worth it
I have absolutely no idea whether that was Tom Frame’s view but it was certainly mine
I was naive to believe overwhelming benefits could happen and was sorely disappointed when they didn’t. It was quickly evident that no planning for the peace had occurred and the military venture was launched on the cheap, in terms of post invasion (lack of) planning.
All military ventures designed to create a more peaceful outcome involve a complex moral calculus reflecting the compromises that humans make when they fail to win the peace
Tom Frame has to my certain knowledge many admirable qualities. I still believe that the majority of Church leaders were against the war from almost the very beginning if not at the beginning. Priests are not by nature war-mongers and I would be surprised if many would categorise Tom Frame as one.
It is one thing to make a judgment as you say he did, and quite another to hunger and thirst after war and its destruction based on religion
I would need to know much more about Tom Frame’s initial position before condemning him as a war-monger, prior to the repentance which you have reported.
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Liz
You seem to want to condemn all Christians and Muslims because of the sins of those who do not represent their faith well
You are right to chastise Christian Churches for failing to act earlier, and Churches certainly ought to be held to the highest standards
At the same time society at large, including non-believers, also has to be held to account, and society has tightened its standards along with the Churches, from what they used to be.
Would the situation be better or worse if the peaceful teachings of Christ were not being taught by the over-whelming majority of mainstream Churches and Ministers?
Is it right to condemn the majority of good individual ministers because of the failings of the minority, if the good ones had no knowledge of wrongdoing?
Do you also criticise the Insurance companies that gave instructions not to admit liability, and do you give credit to those mainstream Churches who now tell their Insurers that they were wrong? Do you give credit to those Churches that have introduced far stronger child protection policies? Or will you dwell forever in the past? You are right to have such strong concerns until every last vestige of wrong doing has been deal with correctly, so I have no words of criticism. I simply ask are you being fair to those who have acted to improve the situation?
Friar Hilarius
Here is a quotation from Tom Frame in an article in The Age containing his repentance
It confirms what I believed was likely … that he was never a war-monger in the true sense of that word
Quote
There must be sombre recognition of the complexities associated with armed intervention. While the overthrow of a despotic regime might be quickly achieved, rebuilding countries with a poisoned political culture takes considerably longer.
The use of military force is very much subordinate to a larger political solution in places such as Iraq. This is because the root causes of disorder and violence are varied and profound. They include the availability of guns and drugs, and the prevalence of racism and sexism together with the dissipation of the family. These are factors that diminish respect for human life.
If there is a pervasive cause, it would appear to be poverty. The UN has rightly engaged in a “war on poverty” where the protagonists are the poor who attempt to steal from the poorer.
The weapons of war are not bullets and bombs but humanitarian aid, and direct economic relief and assistance. Armed intervention is time-consuming and expensive if genuine political and economic progress is to be made. This must not be forgotten.
Unquote
blame the believer not the belief
Heathdon
Could you run that past me again please?
Friar Hilarius
I think Heathdon’s point is somthing along the lines of evil people can always use religion to do evil. They can also use books, newspapers, politics, psychiatry, electricity, schoolteaching, or a town water supply, to do evil.
Thanks James
FRIAR - Only last year during World Youth Week, the catholic church showed its disgraceful attitude to the victims of horrific abuses. Allow me to refresh your memory. There was a couple whose two daughters had been raped by a priest when they were only 5 and 6. One of them, a young woman killed herself a couple of years ago. Her sister is struggling with many health problems emanating from her attempt to kill herself too. Her parents wanted an audience with the pope. A cardinal or archbishop or whatever made a caustic and callous remark, implying they were just seeking publicity. The parents never got to see the pope, and probably didn’t get an apology from anyone else either.
The fact is, that there’s still too many people whose lives have been ruined by these bastards, excuses for human beings, priests and brothers. The role of the cc has been for too many years more interested in their ‘reputation’ than anything to do with criminal activity or the victims - too many, like these little girls, only very young. There’s been too many victims who signed a confidentiality clause - and paid ‘shut up’ money. These situations happened all around the world. When there were nuns in vogue in Ireland and here, their treatment of orphans and pregnant young women were barbaric to say the least. Suffer the little children indeed!
I’m not convinced, that the cc no longer has abusers in its ranks. I also think, that some men(I use that term advisedly) become priests, as it’s one way of having access to children. This has been borne out by the facts.
Do I feel secure re the cc current policies? No! Because I believe those in power will just move the offending criminals around the country or the world, when things ‘heat up’? Attitudes of too many in authority have shown by their comments on a miriad of issues, that their hypocrisy is still there - and many of us know it!
The Insurance Companies have always only been interested in their profits - whether you were an abused child or adult, or an injured worker, or a passenger or driver involved in a car accident - but the church is supposed to be above this? Aren’t they? Shouldn’t they have insisted, that the care and protection of children will not be bargained with? No! They went along to get along - and to save money on their annual premiums? That’s the reality. The Churches have extreme wealth - they don’t pay the normal taxes and fees that the rest of the community has to pay. The land that the churches own in this country, the last time I read, was worth about $8 billion. Perhaps the Anglicans might have to sell some, as their “investments” didn’t pay the desired dividend. They engage in gambling as well? Another hypocrisy!
Why don’t priests and cardinals etc join the people when we rally against war? Why is it left to a ‘left leaning’ minister from another denomination to join the workers against unjust laws for workers? I never saw or heard one priest in my area speak out against Howard - not one! I haven’t heard too many speak out in support of asylum seekers either. Perhaps because the Tamils are not likely to be christians?
Those who make excuses for them are no better! My sister was molested by a priest; my brother was sexually abused by a brother. They’ve never made a complaint! I was bashed as a primary school student by a nun, who should’ve been charged with assault. No, I have no confidence in the ‘tide changeing’. These mongrels will just get smarter! They always do! ‘Needs must’ as the saying goes!
Perhaps you should get out in the real world!!
James, James, James McDonald. “None of the aggressors in WWII were religiously motivated” ???????
I’m sorry, but the Japanese regard their Emperor as a God. They were not allowed to build higher than the Imperial Palace because it might have inconvenience him. They believed utterly that they were doing his commands. Zen Buddhism can reveal some most unfortunate things about people.
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the barbarity with which the Japanese treated the people they conquered. (Think the Rape of Nanking, think the Burma railway, think the obscene medical experiments carried out on living victims, think of the torture they employed) In previous wars encounters found the Japanese had always behaved with dignity (think the Boxer Rebellion).
But by the time of the taking the Marco Polo Bridge they had become brutes. Why? It has been suggested that the Samarui ethos had emerged with renewed ferocity, because of the mindless training the Japanese had had drilled into them. They were nurtured to believe in foreigners as being the lowest of the low and they were treated accordingly.
To believe this bespectacled Emperor had let loose this particular ‘Dog of War” was not the quiet gentleman worthy of respect was heresy. This same Emperor was never brought to justice by the War Crimes Tribunal because of the devotion with which the Japanese held him. And General MacArthur needed the cooperation of the Japanese people. The man who sought to become a world expert on butterflies, it has been suggested, should have been one of the prime people to be indicted.
I think this information might help you to believe that religion did, in fact, have a lot to do with WWII.
Editor. I fail to see the above comment could be edited on the basis of being off-topic.
Liz,
It is all about respect for which I have chosen to respect every digger. You may choose to silo off certain conflicts, but I don’t. How did your grandfather take your criticisms on his involvement and killings in a foreign war? I certainly never judged my grandfather for his involvement in Borneo.
I know a ‘helluva’ lot about the Vietnam War and of course I know, that it was one big f**k up. Many people lost their lives on both sides for no tangible cause. Many young men were conscripted and knew no better. Many good and decent young men thought it was an honourable thing to serve their country and knew no better. I can think of many men in the public eye, such as Kevin Sheedy, that took this path. I also know that opting for gaol carried a very big stigma but good for them, I have no beef with them either.
You say, “It’s typical of a male who imposes his alleged superiority, to be so presumptious and insulting to question my educational skills?”. So you are arrogant enough to use the word “baby killer” without any thought of what people have been through? Don’t bring Male V Female into it but I can say, and lucky for you, you have never had to contemplate going to war.
You ask why the Americans did not stop Pol Pot? I am pretty sure people like you would find a reason to crucify them even if they send troops in. I would much rather live in a world that is proactive rather than a world that is happy to watch and then say “wish I could help guys but you are not threatening my country, carry on”.
I really do struggle to comprehend why some people think it is such an acceptable thing to watch genocides from afar? too many people are happy to wait until the hollywood movie comes out and then say “why did we not do anything?!??”
VENISE
I have never previously heard the Japanese Emperor worship and Japanese cruelty in war referred to as a religion in the same discussion as peaceful religions such as the Buddhist, Jewish and Christian beliefs
[Edit]
Hatred of religion is an unfortunate aspect of modern life which makes me wonder whether we are going backwards rather than forwards
With Best Wishes
Friar Hialrius
I don’t think it would be possible to deny that there is a nexus between all wars, religion or someones ideological empyrean. I can’t think of any war that was entered into for entertainment. The only good war is on the sporting field!
Venise, I think the means used to motivate the Japanese rank and file had more to do with pride in a historical martial past. The same reason they respected the Reich then, and the same reason they still feel an affinity with Scottish Highland military clans (some of the best Highland histories, apart from say John Prebble, are only available in Japanese). Closely related to the reason I gave yesterday at 1:51pm why young Australians join up; they find normal civilian life too soft and yearn for something more disciplined.
But even if I’m wrong about Japan, that still leaves the Nazis and the Bolsheviks (whose own expansion plans were forestalled by the Nazis). One of them sneered at religion and the other would soon start forcing churchgoers into so-called mental institutions for the mental disorder of believing in their religion. And if you went into those places, you generally didn’t come out except as pretty much a vegetable.
Particularly in Russia, either (a) religion was a victim of the war, not an aggressor; or you could say (b) that the anti-religious purges were themselves a kind of bigotous religion. Either way, isn’t all this business of blaming religion for war just another form of the same bigotry you accuse religion of?
The Duke
I have agreed with much that you have written … but anyone who perverts the peaceful teachings of Christ to justify a war is clearly inventing an ideology that is not Christian
Individuals are certainly capable of taking something good, such as Christ’s teachings, and using them for evil purposes
Hence the criminal misinterpretations and perversions of Christianity for political and economic purposes in Northern Ireland and Serbia
These examples are outweighed in multi millions by victims of the non-Christian murderous regimes of the 20th Century
Please do not bring up the hoary old Chestnut that major 20th century killers were in any way Christian. “By their fruits you shall know them”. Measured by their fruits mass murderers are by definition incapable of being defined as Christian. Nor can it be said that they were in any way motivated by genuine Christian beliefs.
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
THE DUKE What a load of cobblers? The man who lost his leg at Tobruk was my children’s paternal grandfather. He agreed with me, and as I said, he was my strongest anti-war supporter. I didn’t use the word “baby killer” which just happens to be two words, but, I was correct, they did kill babies? You can deny it as much as you like. You can take exception of my putting truth into words, but that’s your problem, not mine! My kid’s grandfather was as appalled by the violent images as I was!
We pick and choose who’s ‘worth’ invading their country for. Why don’t we invade Zimbabwe, or why didn’t we stop Idi Amin or President Musharef, or even the US? Incidently, there are other countries in Africa who don’t uphold human rights, but the US turns a blind eye, because those dictators are useful??And why do we rant on about democracy when we remain silent over the invasions, overthrows, mass murders; and don’t speak while the US trains dictators from Latin America. Thatcher supported Pinnochet. Paul Keating supported that butcher in Indonesia who murdered up to 3 million of his people, with our support and that of the intelligence of this country and the US! Both the US and Britain allowed Saddam Hussein to flourish. In fact, each time it was raised in the UN the americans would veto any criticism let alone condemnation. I don’t recall our govts speaking out re Saddam’s practices. Hussein may have been thought of as a bastard, but in the eyes of the US, he was ‘our bastard’! They got rid of him prior to a lengthy and embarrassing court case?
Pakistan’s top nuclear person sold nuclear materials and information, but the US (under Bush) just gave him a slap with a feather. And yet, they get hysterical over Iran, who hasn’t done anything wrong, and unlike Pakistan, is a member of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Why did we pick on Iraq - we made sure the UN removed all his weapons, and then dropped over 300 tonnes of Depleted Uranium bombs. The list goes on! Heroes all!There were no WMD’s and they knew it. And Scott Ritter, an american who led the inspections in the 1990’s tried to tell everyone, but he was ridiculed! Fancy that? Both Condoneeza Rice and Colin Powell stated in early to mid 2001, that Suddan Hussein was no threat to his neighbours, and no threat to the US. After 9/11, showing obscene haste, Bush asked for intelligence that would tie Saddam Hussein to that action. They(high ups in the White House) were sent back when they didn’t produce what he wanted. An example, of ‘keep on doing it until you get it right’?
The US spends 44c in every dollar on the military machine. Once weapons were manufactured to fight wars, now wars are manufactured to justify the weapons and then manufacture more? Investigate those in the Bush Administration and their links to oil, including Karzai.
As for the male v/s female thing. Stop acting like a high handed arrogant person, and you won’t be accused of being a sexist bully!
James is once again correct, and while it can be argued that the Nazis invented a quasi-religion at the Nuremberg rallies, the test of true religion is its capacity to bring healing and reconciliation to the world
It did not take long for the German perversion of religion to cause Germany to experience devastating harm from the persistent and ill-conceived militarism of its leaders, and the response of those attacked and their allies.
Likewise the Japanese version of perverted religious fanaticism brought the Japanese to the edge of starvation.
No war is justified by the peaceful teachings of Christ, but many wars are forced upon the victims of aggressive leaders. The decisions leading to the Vietnam war were morally questionable also, but they can hardly be said to have been based on religious convictions.
Friar Hilarius
Liz,
You are getting it wrong.
I am not denying babies were killed in Vietnam or ANY other war. Unless you think every other conscripted solidier outside of Vietnam were peace keepers that carried water pistols, you are wrong. Your father and my grandfather would have committed the same attrocities as any Australian soldier in Vietnam.
It was only through the advancement of media that Vietnam got the attention that it did, quite righty so. I have read books where the diggers of WW2 pulled gold teeth from Japanese soldiers, decapitated dead Japanese soldiers, taunted POW’s whilst they begged for food / water and raped women. Vietnam was very wrong, but the diggers deserve to be respected which I suspect you do not agree. I suspect you are part of a minority.
As for Iraq, everyone has a view. I am only 30 but September 11 2001 was the single most scariest moment of my life. The ASX crashed and the world was frought with panic. People of the US were very angry, so were many Australians. Sadaam was given many chances to bypass War. Scott Ritter? In fact, after the Persian Gulf War the UN actually located and destroyed large quantities of WMD materials with varying degrees of Iraqi co-operation. I also recall Ritter was blocked from entering some sites and he publicy commented that there was a probability that they were producing WMD. He was in favor of dipomacy instead of forceful removal of the regime, I tend to agree.
You call me arrogant whilst you deem it acceptable to insult? You are trying to paint me as arrogant, based on your subjective and confusing views, for merely pointing out that you have been quite insulting which you refuse to acknowledge.
Friar - I am not isolating any religion and in fact, Christianity is probably an exception as far as I am concerned. Try and name any war which was not connected to a religion and thus an ideological view?
No war is good but I struggle to think how war can ever cease to exist since it has been part of our geneaology for many thousand years. All fallen soldiers deserve to be acknowledged.
James McDonald: You forget that Stalin was revered as a god. Just as North Korea have given divinity to Kim Il-sung, and his heredity heir-son-Kim Jong-il, who, in turn has announced one of his own sons will be taking over from him. One doesn’t have to believe in one of the conventional gods. It’s the attached fervour with its concomitant brain-washing which delineates a god.
LIZ45: It is my opinion that America is, in fact, run by the producers of war materiél. They are the people an elected president has to defer to. They call the shots. I think George W Bush became too rich even for their blood, thus going along with the public and supporting President Obama. If you can get hold of any slightly to the left of centre publication you will find out the horrorific things which have been done to Latin America by the Pentagon.
And if you really wish to despair, Len Deighton, the English author wrote a very good book, which naturally appears to be the only one of his I can’t find. Just try looking under Deighton in the nearest 2nd hand bookshop. It’s about American politics and the way they bugger up entire countries with their endless trickery, bribery and crookedness.
It’s late and I’m going to bed.
[Edit - Please focus on the issues and refrain from abuse of other commenters]
“We pick and choose who’s ‘worth’ invading their country for. Why don’t we invade Zimbabwe, or why didn’t we stop Idi Amin or President Musharef, or even the US? Incidently, there are other countries in Africa who don’t uphold human rights, but the US turns a blind eye, because those dictators are useful??And why do we rant on about democracy when we remain silent over the invasions, overthrows, mass murders; and don’t speak while the US trains dictators from Latin America. Thatcher supported Pinnochet. Paul Keating supported that butcher in Indonesia who murdered up to 3 million of his people, with our support and that of the intelligence of this country and the US! Both the US and Britain allowed Saddam Hussein to flourish. In fact, each time it was raised in the UN the americans would veto any criticism let alone condemnation. I don’t recall our govts speaking out re Saddam’s practices. Hussein may have been thought of as a bastard, but in the eyes of the US, he was ‘our bastard’! They got rid of him prior to a lengthy and embarrassing court case?”
Well put Liz 45 and the link below will show just some of those FRIENDLY fiends.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html
The Duke
Another excellent post … most of which I entirely agree with … and thank you for your clarification concerning Christianity
Technically you are correct about religion in its most basic definition which is “a system of belief”
However, I would like to assist you to make an important distinction between “religion” and “ideology” as they are more commonly understood
Religion as most people know it is an organised system of belief involving a divine being
Ideologies typically do not involve a divine being, and the absence of any divinity is obvious to all except the most fanatical adherents of the earthly human said to be divine
This is an important distinction, and certainly in the case of most Communists and Nazis (responsibly for major genocides) and other murderers such as Idi Amin and Pol Pot there was no reliance on God
A further characteristic of religions is that they are long lasting while ideologies tend to be transient (though harmful while they last)
The major world religions have a long history and record of teaching peace. Even the often despised religion of Islam has more peaceful adherents than militant ones.
Yet another characteristic of mainstream religions is a body of teaching confirmed and subjected to scholarly criticism over centuries
Ideologies rarely pass the tests which I have mentioned that define mainstream religions, and when they do they are hardly ever warlike eg Taoism Confucianism etc
I am not aware of any mainstream Church in the world today that has led people into war or endorsed war in any other terms than resisting evil. Ideologies by contrast have indeed led to mass murder
I think the distinction I have made is important. A final charateristic of religion as most understand the term is that people gather together peacefully to worship their God.
This sense of loving comunity is one of the vital missing ingredients in much modern living
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Venise
The humans people regarded as God were not God
Nor were they seen as God by the majority of people in the world
Most ideological leaders are not usually founders of lasting religions or Churches
It seems that those who worship humans as God are mistaken
Friar Hilarius
Venise, if Russian warmongers were crusaders for a Stalin cult, and if German warmongers were crusaders for a Hitler cult, and so on … what is the religion of those American and British warmongers who do not go to church and follow a conventional religion of supernatural afterlife and the rest?
FRIAR - I’m getting pretty sick of your nebulous comments about christianity. The Catholic Church was guilty of handing people over to the Nazis preceding and during WW2. Those priests who smuggled jewish people and others away from the Nazis were frequently dobbed in by their fellow clerics. Christianity is not the ‘goody two shoes’ that you keep espousing. There’s none so blind as those who refuse to see. I also find it more insulting when people deliberately choose to ignore historical facts.
When Pinnochet with the help of the US used bloody violence to get rid of President Allende. When these bastards killed Archbishop Romero, the people asked Rome to consider him a saint. They were refused outright. The people of El Salvador were also castigated for their actions against, once again, a dictator with the help of the US. In fact, the role of the Catholic Church in Latin America has been one of appeasement, with a few notable exceptions. I also recall the role of the Church in Sth Korea years ago, when the clergy supported the impoverished people. But these cases are few and far between. In the main, their silence is deafening!
What’s going on in Honduras is another disgrace - once again, with the help of the White House? Democratically elected leaders overthrown - in largely catholic countries. I haven’t heard the Pope make any murmurings of support for the people of Peru either!
A good documentary about Latin America, is John Pilger’s ‘War on Democracy’? Or, ‘The Revolution will not be televised’, about the coup in Venezuela, aided by the US - again!
Bush Senior worked closely with the bin Laden family during his time with the Carlyle Group (OIL OIL OIL). George W had dealings with the Taliban etc prior to him claiming presidency - he didn’t win in 2000, he stole it, with lots of help from the media, the Supreme Court and being able to hack into the computerised voting system, and by disenfranchising blacks in Florida! The biggest democracy indeed! Don’t recall hearing anything from any of the churches over that lot either???Turning their faces away is no justification for allowing torture and death of impoverished peoples and their elected leaders. I call it being complicit in the crimes. The churches all have blood on their hands! I have no time for appeasers - none whatsoever!
THE DUKE - So you’re only 30! My sons are in their 40’s! You didn’t even see the images of the Vietnam War on your TV each night? I did! That’s why the Bush Administration, the Pentagon and the whole stinking war machine made sure, that ‘Vietnam’ would not happen again; that is, that the people would not witness the barbarous acts of war in their living rooms each evening, as this was a large part why the people rose up against this brutality, and helped stop that bloody war. The fact that the US military also rose up helped too! They virtually went on strike! That’s why, with both the Afghan and Iraq invasions, the journalists were almost hand picked, and only those cleared by the war machine were allowed anywhere near where the action was/is. Over 60 journalists have been murdered by the military forces. More journalists plus unionists have been detained and tortured in Iraq and other places.
The US and the rest of the Coalition of the Killing, are determined, that only their views are in the mainstream media. Fortunately, some very brave journalists and residents of Baghdad and other places, have managed to tell the real story, but you won’t find them in the conventional or corporate media. Australia is complicit in allowing horrific war crimes against citizens, whose only ‘crime’ is to be against the invasion now occupation of their countries - Iraq & Afghanistan. In fact, while US money is going to the Taliban, our money and human resources are helping to prop up the corrupt govts of both these countries - war crimes all!
I saw the Vietnamese man being executed by americans, I saw that little girl run in terror through the streets, naked, when the Agent Orange bomb burned the clothes from her body - I saw that; you weren’t even born then. I saw too many horrific images; I’ve read of how the US authorities actively encouraged their soldiers to use drugs like LSD and heroin - in fact, they’d fly them in! How can anyone defend that? What arrogance!
Liz 45
It was worse than you say … the little girl was burnt by napalm
I think also you need to look at the morality of fighting from villages occupied by civilians
When the front line is not clear terrible things are bound to occur
So they were fighting for their own homes?
Did they really have to do it by putting their families in harm’s way?
The problem with war is that normal standards are dropped on both sides
We forget the lessons of the last war when we start the next one
We are all guilty, not just the politicians and soldiers
Friar Hilarius
PS The ordinary soldier is as much a victim as the civilian casualties
By “politicians and soldiers” I was referring to the high level military servants of the politicians who like the German military were interested in their own careers and being seen to obey orders
Another problem with wars is that usually only atrocities on the losing side are prosecuted
In the fog of war and the peace which follows often the winners escape scrutiny
However, if I remember rightly My Lai was an exception
That massacre was identified and the guilty charged
This was a rare but important recognition that even in war there are supposed to be rules
As much as we may hate war no one has found a way to control human aggression
Have you any ideas on how to make politicians more answerable?
Friar Hilarius
Liz,
Pull forward, away from the pain of those Vietnam years. I was lucky - my marble stayed in the barrel.
Those who follow, who didn’t live then, have their own images to deal with. Many of these are as horrid, even if journalists have been barred from the scene.
+ What about the missing WMD’s?
+ Why did the prelude to the invasion of Iraq include smashing the basics of society - dams, hospitals, bridges, water and sewer systems? This ensured that the populace were brutalised and antagonistic.
+ How stupid and inhumane were the generals who selected these targets?
What matters most is consideration of how these can be prevented from recurring.
I have previously suggested, not in jest, that Australia could lead the way internationally, by adopting a budgetary policy that expenditure on peace studies will at least equal war studies (such as Duntroon) and that peace expenditure overall should match military expenditure.
This would be budget nutral and require an entirely more positive view of how Australia interacts with the world. The result? Presenting Australia as a beacon of hope, optimism, opportunity and generosity. But it would cost nothing.
The napalmed girl has no place in my view of the future.
Liz, the heroin thing was both more comlex and nastier than that.
Congress had made it clear, largely because of those awful pictures on the evening news, that they would never allow any expansion of the area of operations into Cambodia and Laos.
But that left the US Army, and ours, the only forces confined within a border that was porous to everybody else. The army could not fight effectively like that with its hands tied, it had to either do the job properly, or not at all.
Enter the spooks. I’ve said elsewhere what a tragic mistake it was after Yalta to let spooks run their own foreign policy outside the military chain of command. The spooks hired mercenary armies to do the cross-border operations that the army couldn’t.
But they needed to fund these cross-border operations without any budget from Congress, and without any accountability for operations that weren’t supposed to exist. So they came up with a brilliant scheme of buying heroin from the Shan state and selling it to the VC, in the hope of reducing the effectiveness of the communists.
The NVA easily figured out what they were doing. They instructed the VC to buy all the heroin they could from the CIA dealers, and then to sell it to American troops. Which they did.
The cross-border covert ops were a ridiculous open secret which were covered in depth by various journalists at the time, but the lack of accountability and the cutouts in the mercenary chains of command allowed them to commit widespread atrocities.
And the US soldiers started dying like flies from heroin overdose.
Oh, and the epilogue. The spooks continued to use the heroin business to fund covert ops, even after it became clear that most of the end users were conscripted American troops — frightened, demoralized, abandoned by their government, hated by their countrymen, and a long way from home.
The truth all came out in the 1975 Pentagon Papers Senate Hearings, so Congress imposed much more intense oversight on the CIA from then on.
The spooks running the heroin trade left the service (many of them were contractors anyway) and became rich for years afterwards, expanding their market to the mainland USA after the war was over. Ex-American spooks continued to be a major source of heroin on the streets of US cities for years afterwards, until the Columbian gangs took over the market.
FRIAR - “It seems that those who worship humans as God are mistaken”
Well how do you account for the catholic church’s teachings about the Pope?
“The Pope cannot err in what he teaches”? That’s likening the pope to a high place isn’t it? Alongside god? He’s only a man, with all the frailties and faults of the rest of us. he then makes announcements about life of which he has zilch knowledge - contraception and abortion. I don’t swallow it at all! It’s an evil organisation that hoodwinks and blackmails peoples’ weaknesses - and then takes their money!
FRIAR - You’re right, it was napalm - but my sentiments don’t alter one bit. Whether it was one horrific element or another??
“So they were fighting for their own homes?
Did they really have to do it by putting their families in harm’s way?
If they were fighting for their own homes, what do you suggest they do with their families? And, as I recall, anyone who could defend their village or wherever would; except for little kids. My Lai was all about killing those people inside their homes, or wherever they stood. These people could hardly get on a bus or plane and remove themselves could they? Even the people in Baghdad or any other area couldn’t escape. How do you escape napalm, Agent Orange, Depleted Uranium or Phosphorus bombs. The US is using drones in Afghanistan - killing 60 people at a wedding for example, and there are too many situations like this?No sign of the alleged enemy. The US is also killing innocent Afghanis, allegedly defending them from the dreaded Taliban, but giving money to the Taliban and having discussions with them. Work that out if you can! For every Taliban killed, hundreds if not more innocent civilians are killed. The US has it down to a fine art now - killing is very efficient. That’s why they won’t release numbers. A General commented when asked that question, “We don’t do body counts”. He should’ve added, ‘we don’t do the Geneva Convention either’?
“Have you any ideas on how to make politicians more answerable?”
A good start would be to make politicians, particularly those who send people to kill, to take the lead, followed by their wives/husbands and kids over 18. That might be a good place to start. Most of those who send others to war are men. I can’t have my wish to make them experience pregnancy, long labours and child birth, but I’ll take a close second - this just might do it! With film crews of course! Must see how brave they are in the face of their own mortality! I’m damned angry enough these days too!
JAMES MCDONALD - Yes, of course you’re right James. I just mentioned it in response to those who are appeasers for war, in particular the US. If you put CIA+Drugs into your search engine, there’s enough information there to read it for days. The same applies to Afghanistan+Drugs. Karzai’s brother is a high up drug lord. These monsters in the so-called ‘government’ are a joke. we’re killing ordinary people to prop up these war lords, drug lords and other violent and corrupt mates of the US war machine. There’s a good documentary, it can be viewed on the net called, ‘Afghan Massacre’? Most enlightening, chilling too!
And JAMES MC (incidently, I’m glad your marble didn’t come out of the barrel?)
How many people in any of the common religions have come out against these obscenities. They, like FRIAR keep making all the nice, calm, appeasing comments about the difference between worshiping god and those naughty religious- but they remain silent about what they bloody well know is the reality. People like you and I know the truth and reject it for what it is - they cover it up with platitudes, that to me is a crime against humanity!
Also, I haven’t heard Pell or Jensen or any of those so-called god fearing men speak out against the atrocity of what the Rudd govt has been doing to those people on the boats in Indonesia. Where is the outcry, that this is not a christian way to behave? Why doesn’t the minister where Kevin Rudd goes each sunday come out on the side of these people from Sri Lanka! By their silence they show their hand! And it’s no better than the Pentagon, the AFP, the Military, the Rudd or Obama govts, or that of any other country ruled by despots! My crime, is to educate myself of the realities, and then speak that truth! They don’t like that, and after all I’m a woman too - how dare I! Quite easily actually! I’ve hated injustice since I was a little girl!
Liz
When you learn to speak with less anger and more grace I will be more inclined to discuss principles on which I agree with you, and actions which can be taken
There is cause for anger, but any one can engage in hand-wringing
It takes much more to suggest real solutions as I do along with others
You might begin by cancelling all your entertainment until the war is over
War is too serious to be treated as though it isn’t happening
I also suggest you consider going to Church
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR - You aren’t HILARIUS at all! In fact I’m inclined to ask, are you taking the piss? Go to church indeed! Why do I feel that I’ve once again been given the paternalistic, patronising pat on the head! Truly! You’re either gutless or got a warped sense of whatever? What”entertainment” am I receiving, enjoying during this “war”?’Are you serious or does your response just mean, that you don’t have a legitimate answer to my questions or theories or assertions? I don’t have any problems mate, you do!
Anger is a legitimate emotion to abuses, platitudes, criminal offences, patronising responses of men(of which I’ve had to cop for over 50 years - getting weary!) I can almost detect the ‘there, there dear, drink this and you’ll feel better’? Or perhaps the chamber magistrate my friend took me to in the 60’s after my then husband bashed me, “go home, be a good wife, and cook his favourite meal”! Which category do you come under? The legal, the professional, the church or the ordinary garden variety sexist shit I had to put up with? I don’t suffer fools gladly these days. I can smell paternalism 100 metres away! Angry, you bet, because in this era of change, nothing much has changed for the dispossessed, the weak, blacks or women and kids! The constant is men who are basically misogynist(that means men who hate women, and hate their quest for equality). I’m not the problem mate, you are! What is your world’s experiences? Very little I believe!
Take a look at the stats re women and domestic violence in this country. I assume you’re from Australia! Don’t insult me or try and remove my many years of experience in this world; while trying to work and raise my kids, under the most extreme conditions. How old are you? 10? Get a grip mate, there’s more to life than your simplistic utterances in the ‘overwhelming good of the religious’. Too many of us know by experience, that it’s BS!
War is the ultimate rejection of peoples right to live their life, have their dreams and aspirations, have kids, and bring them up with love and security. People like me, no, women like me don’t cause the wars, we’re not “entertained” by them; we abhor violence and don’t think it’s intelligent or clever to produce 50 platitudes for each criticism of either those who cause them(usually to acquire wealth or privilege or both, of which they have no entitlements) or those who find the empire builders obscene! I don’t have any problem, except trying to live with the reality of the oppressors and those who support or make excuses for them. The people who suffer the most, whether it’s just plain capitalism, or capitalism’s revolting off shoots like starting wars to promote even more capitalism, or just plain, cruel and revolting violence, are the women and their kids! Something of which, you have not only no experience, but your patronising responses show, that you are incapable of empathy!
No sir, I have no problems. But you? You have many!
FRIAS - Just a little insight as to why I get shitty with the apologists of ‘wars’? Read this! The US is providing the Taliban with funds, while young men and women are being sent home in body bags. This is an obscenity and shows this farce for what it is! There’s no excuse for ignorance. It’s not bliss, it’s being irresponsible!
http://www.alternet.org/world/143898/how_the_u.s._funds_the_taliban_/
LIZ45
Friar was correct in saying that the girl was the victim of an F4 Napalm attack and not the deforestation chemical. Agent Orange.
You again mistake the street side execution of the VC man who was shot in the head with a pistol..
The man that shot him was not an American but a South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the following link explains why.
http://www.cah.utexas.edu/db/dmr/gallery_lg.php?s=3&gallery=eddie_adams
You should always attempt to get the FULL story before using it in any post of this serious nature.
I served two full tours in Vietnam and believe me you know absolutely nothing about what occurred in that conflict.
I suggest that you read the following link to “Operation Phoenix” which should give you “just a tiny taste” of the realities of war and not what you “imagine” it is like and I must point out that Australian troops took part in this totally illegal operation and many more as well, with the full knowledge of their political masters.
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/operation_phoenix.htm
Liz
Why do I get the feeling that anything a man says would make you angry?
Can we sum up your position as follows?
All women are good
All men are bad
Friar Hilarius
PS The women who enticed men to go to war by sending them white feathers were not real women? Probably they were so oppressed they had no minds of their own?
Hi Liz, I think you and the Friar may be arguing at cross-purposes, and the Friar’s first post is worth another read. He says war is such a terrible thing that a country should not be allowed to go about normal life and ignore what is going on besides a few minutes on the TV news. He says that a country taking war seriously and behaving accordingly would be much more inclined to ask itself every day whether the campaign is worth the damage; that country would, in all but the most serious cases, say no it isn’t worth it, and call it off.
Liz
I am indebted to you for the article … after reading all 4 pages carefully I noted the final sentence :-
“The trouble is that — as with so much in Afghanistan — the United States doesn’t seem to know how to fix it.”
The simple answer is to withdraw and leave the Afghans to their own devices
I suspect this is what will happen … as it did in Vietnam
In the meantime the casualties mount
And most of us carry on as normal
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR - Incidently, why do you call yourself thus? Are you a priest? Cardinell Pell perhaps? No, just a religious zealot?
My persona is not as secretive. Liz is an abbreviation of my second name, and I was born in 1945, after all I wouldn’t have been alive to see the revolting footage of the Vietnam War would I?
You show me the women who instigated wars or sent other women’s kids to go and fight and be killed? Apart from Thatcher that is. After all she supported Pinnochet up till the bitter end. And what’s the BS about your PS?
Show me the stats about rape, pedophilia that point to the FACT that women are as guilty as men, and show me the stats that show, that there are more at least equal numbers of women who bash men, including while they’re pregnant, and I’ll stand corrected, apologise and desist! How many midwives have you heard tell the horrific story of pregnant men’s bodies with boot prints on their bellies? The ball’s in your court!
JAMES - No, I’m not at cross purposes at all. FRIAR has been the one to engage in the age old paternalistic occupation of appeasement and the ‘there, there dear’ brigade. At my age I don’t suffer fools gladly any more, and I can’t stand misogynists. After all, aren’t women part of the oppressed majority in this country these days?????
FRIAR HILARIUS: I’ve only got your word as to what constitutes ‘god’. And I would hardly think you offer enough evidence to support your hypothesis.
I once suggested to ‘one of the better known broadsheet’s’ religious writers that if he could prove there was a god I would go over to his place and cut his lawns, and do his dishes, all for free, for the rest of my life. Charming man, very sympathetic, but he declined my offer.
Of course I can’t prove that god doesn’t exist. However, I merely look at the people who support him. Cut!
Liz,
Whilst I note your very strong views, and I know that you are a kind hearted person with good intent, you still cannot see what I am saying. All I have ever sought from you was an acknowledgement of respect to the Vietnam Veterans. Thats all.
My argument to you has only ever been that I think it is unfair to silo individual conflicts and to then treat those brave men with disdain. Thats all. Get angry with Eisenhower, get angry with Menzies but don’t get angry with these guys. As I said, there is alot of literature to suggest that the diggers of previous Wars were
I doubt that our troops left our shores with the preconceived notion that they were going to partake in some of things you have mentioned. The troops represented every walk of life at that time within Australia and they all thought they were doing a noble thing.
My view is that for anyone to watch a conflict on tv and to then make a personal judgement on the integrity of the soldiers is quite unfair and, quite sad for Australia and any other troop that committed to the same cause of a different conflict. If the modus operandi of War is to merely protect our border I cannot think of a War worthy of our involvement?
I don’t like war and the fact that my great grandfather, grandfather, father and cousin have served in conflicts is almost by coincidence, except for my cousin who is an officer. In saying that, War is never going to disappear given the dynamics of the world economy.
In fact, you raise a good point about the images of the Vietnam War. I doubt anyone in the world would go to War, or they would atleast think harder, if the media released images that represented the realities of War. In saying that, conflict and power struggles have been with us for a very very long time and many residents of communist led countries crave a democracy.
Yes I am 30, I have read many books and other educational material too. I also agree via the annals of history that the Vietnam War was a political ballsup and, I have never ever viewed the very public images of the Vietnam War with glee.
I choose to treat the US with alot more respect than you obviously do, thats your right, and keep a very open and wary mind with articles that you have presented above. I do not believe everything I read. I recently watched a very good documentary on 9/11 which suggested that it was organised by the US government. I choose not to believe it, supported by other materials I have read over the years.
Perhaps it is because you are a mother and I am a male that our differences lay? this is not a sexist thing to say, science will prove that we are inclined to have varying views.
Venise
You don’t only have my word … you have the word of the Christian Church which has witnessed to the existence of Christ and the Christian God for 2000 years
Many intelligent people have spiritual belief … and many don’t
You live and die with your choice
The Duke
You are right to honour those who serve in the belief that they are serving others
The means of conducting war can be condemned even as the spirit of service to others is respected … especially if the purpose of a war is clear beyond all doubt as being aimed at delivering peace
War is always a compromise of standards resulting from the preceding failure to win the peace
Honourable men and women lay down their lives for good purposes … but it is certainly important that the purposes be right … and we are entitled to challenge the decision makers if their motives appear to be wrong
Sadly we never register the horrors of war for long enough to ensure that greater efforts are made in times of peace to avoid the next war. Liz is right to question the means used in many cases. I myself have serious questions about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and many aspects of the Vietnam War, as well as the failure to halt many genocides.
I continue to honour those who served in the hope of peace, as you do
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Venise, what of my question at 12:13pm?
You can probably see where I’m going with this. If not all religions are theist or even supernatural, and if the crime of religion is to justify imposing itself — at first only by words but later by force — on those who don’t want it, is not your own form of aggressive atheism itself a form of religious crusade?
Is there any real difference between the Taliban’s enforcement of its flavour of Islam, and the USSR’s enforcement of atheism (including much later, after Kruschev had put an end to the Stalin cult)?
Liz
Your campaign against men appears to be based on the harm caused to you and others
Decent men do not disagree with you when you cite incidents of harm
Some men cause harm … some men don’t
Friar Hilarius
guys, I’d suggest that we are severely getting off topic by debating religious teachings and domestic violence. Perhaps we need to call in Germaine Greer, unless that is, she is already in here??
I don’t agree with much of what Liz has raised but thats cool, its all good. I still respect passion. Perhaps freedom of speach is exactly what our fallen comrades have given us?
Anyway, it is another beautiful day in London. Grey sky, raining, cold and more emails on the crackberry!
The Duke
I find the teachings of Christ are relevant in just about every situation, including your own valid point about honouring those who serve others
Interestinglythe principles taught in the New Testament are frequently accepted by secular humanists as valid … they just don’t accept the Divine Source
Many atheists and agnostics are highly moral people and adhere closely to their claimed moral standards
So if there is a gap between claimed beliefs and actual behaviour (usually defined as hypocrisy) believers such as myself have a lot to explain
To return to the topic an Army chaplain recently told me that a wounded soldier often does not mind a chaplain holding his hand while total strangers cut off his clothes
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
PS Clear blue skies and 30 degrees Centigrade forecast here tomorrow (Australian East Coast) - I recommend a log fire in your case - or a flight here with your surfboard
LIZ45,
You do come across as anti male and whilst I do not hold up any banners for my sex ( frankly more and more I find the average Aussie male repulsive) I also see the female of the species as a far poorer in intelligence and general understanding of life than many of my age group (60+)
I would never serve in battle alongside a woman and neither would I pretend that I could cope with childbirth, we are different for many reasons.
You seem to think that you can understand what men have to put up with in wars and why they attend these repulsive events anyway. You don’t! anymore that I could understand what it like to bring new life into this world.
Soldiers don’t very often get to choose where or who they fight nor why, anymore than women choose which sperm makes the next generation and what combination of genes will predominate and what that child will turn out to be like.
You ladies may well turn out murderers, pedophiles, soldiers or God (if he/she/it exists) forgive, politicians and we do not hold that against you but make no bones about it YOU produce the genocidal maniacs, politicians, priests, poets, soldiers and saints not us mere males.
The cocktails of our genes are mixed in the shaker of your body not ours so please do not judge us too harshly as no matter how bad we turn out we can always trace our beginnings back to you.
Women so often point out to the world of us mere men, that we will soon become superfluous in the wondrous world of the creation of children thus relinquishing us of the responsibility of future generations of both sexes.
I for one look forward to that day so when I am standing in the court observing a person of my family (by marriage) being found guilty of some heinous crime, when I can turn to the jury and say with conviction, “he’s hers, he did not spring from my loins your Honour.”
THE DUKE - No, I don’t support wars, past or present. I don’t support ‘the troops’ past or present. I don’t support people these days, who,although we have all sorts of information at out disposal, choose to put on a uniform and go and kill people in another country, who are of no threat to us. Then, castigate and belittle those who manage to escape the horror of it all. Then, when those who protested while this travesty is going on say they don’t support them, all hell breaks loose. I can’t say I don’t support the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, but then say I support those who are going to invade or who have wreaked havoc and death on innocent people, including kids - it doesn’t make any sense at all!
I find it impossible to follow the logic of shock jocks, the police and politicians, who rant and rave about what people do during a protest or end of school acitivity, but don’t raise a murmer when fellow Australians are murdering strangers in their own country!
I find it impossible to follow the logic of people like George W, who professed to be pro-life; took a man to court to stop him switching off life support for his vegetative wife; executed people; locks 16 yr olds up for mandatory life sentences, but kills over a million people, makes 4 million homeless, causes 50% unemployment; doesn’t abide by the GC re essential services and cultural valuables; but lauds democracy and says that’s the aim of the bloodshed! I just don’t get it! There’s no rhyme nor reason but pure lust for power and dominance - and if they have OIL there, wow! jackpot!
I haven’t even raised the question of money yet! The schools, roads and almost every aspect of infrastructure in the US is almost defunct. No money! Spending 44c in every dollar on the weapons/war/fuel industries! Allow 18,000 of their people to die every year due to inadequate or no health cover, but mention a national health scheme and those who are making a mint will scream, socialist! However, given the global fc, the same people are OK with socialising the losses of greedy bankers - and then hand themselves a nice fat bonus out of the billions of dollars that the tax payers will be paying back! No, I don’t support this cruel madness at all! It’s not just, defies belief, and makes lots of people as mad as hell!
Another hand-wringing winge … and barely a word about solutions
The New Testament contains the answers
Friar Hilarius
Liquid Len, “anymore than women choose which sperm makes the next generation” … actually in normal circumstances that’s exactly what women do choose, although they typically lose this right in combat zones; it is a common practice in war to rape civilian women to the point of saturation. Genetic conquest. It’s not in the infantry manual (“the pam” as it’s called in the army) and it’s not a big feature of UN peacekeeping operations, but it is one of the fates that women on the ground face in war zones, along with loss of their sons and husbands on the battlefield, violent death whenever civilians are punished for their army’s success, and slow extinction from scorched-earth strategies and disease.
So let’s just call off this war between the sexes, hey? It’s getting very tedious.
LIQUID LEN - [Edit - please address the issues without insulting other commenters]
Women still don’t have equality in the workplace, either by designation or rates of pay; women’s role in a domestic sense is still undervalued - in may cases referred to as ‘a stay at home mum’, as though we sit around all day, sipping tea and playing bridge!
May I suggest you read ‘the End of Equality” by Anne Summers?
Take a look at the Australian Bureau of Statistics; the Police Crime Report in each state, and any other body that keeps statistics, and see who commits the most crimes of violence in this country, indeed the world. If a man was killed every 7-10 days in this country by a business colleague or his female partner, there’d be a Royal Commission organised as quick as you could say, Domestic Violence!!!! How many women rape men let alone kids? Go and visit your local court house for a week and find who the majority of criminals are? 96% of sexually abused kids are abused by men(usually) who should be protecting them, in the safety of their own home at least??
If women had the most power and influence in this society or any other, I may agree with you in part. But the fact is, that the way people turn out has more to do with the quality of food etc, parenting skills, educational facilities, attitudes of society and the power and influence of money, technology etc - most if not all of these institutions were designed, set up and until recent times, run mostly by men. When I was raising my boys from the 1960’s women were denigrated if they showed real affection for boys - OK with girls, but the ‘mummy’s boy’ nonsense was alive and well. I submit, that if I’d had the most power in the home environment, I wouldn’t have had to work so hard to ensure, that they didn’t also grow up to be dominators, control freaks, cruel and cold, financial abusers and last but not least, bashers of women. I’m not anti-men, but anti violence and oppression - of all types, including the misogynist attitudes of many of the formalised religions - the catholics being the worst. Run by men for men and against the health, wealth and independence of women.
Nurture not nature has more to do with how we turn out; how much love is lavished on us from birth until the end of our lives.
FRIUS - I don’t have to find all suggest the solutions. I didn’t make the oppressive rules, you and your lot did! It’s up to you to ‘unmake’ them. You’re neither inclined, nor are you interested, as it all suits you and your type very well! I wouldn’t mind so much, if you were genuine in your concerns, and most importantly, really wanted to change the status quo. I’m not interested in men who agree with me when I raise these horrors, I want their commitment to start today to change it - by standing up to their mates when they make sexist jokes, comments or whenever the view is expressed, that men have a right to use violence in their personal relationships as a right of passage in life! That’s the only way things will change!
LIQUID LEN - “I also see the female of the species as a far poorer in intelligence and general understanding of life than many of my age group (60+)” You’re taking the piss too, right?
Well, with that superior attitude, you probably didn’t have to worry about your genes ‘getting mixed up’ with some woman’s? What woman would be good enough? Perhaps for the sake of sex, you’d be willing to overlook the imbalance! Truly, you just keep getting more arrogant - as though that’s brought much joy to the world???
Dear Editor: Liquid Len and Liz45 have been allowed reams of comments which to me seem to be wildly off comment. I mean, we have gone from Anzac day and the futility of Oz troops being flung into battle at the behest of our masters, Great Britain and Imperial America, down to an all- in battle by one of the madder elements of organised religion, Friar Marcus, to a lady who is obsessed with what used to be called the Women’s Liberation movement, and a gentleman called Liquid Len.
Of course, I am delighted to receive on this question. However, pray tell, what does women’s intelligence, genetics, unless warrior’s have a genetic ability to transfer the ability to fight; sex, always a terrific subject, and greedy bankers have to do with the initial article written by Guy Rundle?
I am always getting hammered for being off-topic. Yet these guys make me look like an amateur.
PS: Not off-comment, off-topic.
Venise
PPS: “Of course, I am delighted to receive comment/moderation on this question”.
LIZ45 “You’re taking the piss too, right? ” Definitely not!
LIZ45 “Well, with that superior attitude, you probably didn’t have to worry about your genes ‘getting mixed up’ with some woman’s? What woman would be good enough? Perhaps for the sake of sex, you’d be willing to overlook the imbalance! Truly, you just keep getting more arrogant - as though that’s brought much joy to the world???”
Nice work LIZ 45, Good of you to confirm my beliefs, but sadly my wife of 32 years two adult children are quite enough proof to me that there was still a surfeit of lovely women around when I was looking for a life partner.
I think your attitude confirms that your gender, unlike good wine, does not always improve with age and I am also sure that the same equally applies to mine.
As regards to “getting more arrogant” that form of response is indicative of low self esteem.
I think I have had sufficient discourse with you LIZ45.
Adios
JAMES McDONALD: Sorry if I missed your question, but I have been locked in battle with the editors of Crikey who keep moderating me for being off-topic. In fact I have written to them asking why other people can be completely off-topic vis-a-vis Liz45, Liquid Len and Friar Marcus who are presently having a ball discussing women’s intelligence, genetics, sex and greedy bankers, which I would have thought was about as off-topic as anyone could get.
It is because the madder elements of religion so closely resemble a totalitarian state, and a totalitarian state so closely resembles religion, that they become the same.
THE GREAT FAULTS: of christianity, judaisim, and islam, and all the derivitives there of, come about by saying..Thou shalt not. I find this an insult to my intelligence. My family were atheists and I am an atheist. Yet my moral code is every bit as strong, if not more so, than that of most religionists. I needed no divine influence to behave morally. I just knew there were things one didn’t do. We atheists don’t need to be told not to kick other people in the shins, not to be too promiscuous, not to be cruel to people or animals. The works.
Any intelligent human being knows these things…….
Listen, a neighbour is coming for drinks and I typing away stark, motherless naked and have to get my act together. I’ll be on deck a bit later…….
Cheers
Venise
LIQUID LEN - And you just can’t help yourself can you? you gloss over the realities that you don’t wish to address, and choose a comment or two to twist to suit yourself.
You obviously have a superior view of yourself, in fact of most males, but I’m showing my lack of self esteem by pointing out the bleeding obvious. The stats are there, as to which sex is the most violent; that causes the most discord and use of resources through their negative, superior, arrogant and abusive behaviour, but you choose to ignore all that, and like all arrogant beings, just remove yourself when you feel you’ve exercised enough of your superior comments!
I won’t count on you to be part of the solution! My self esteem is probably in need of boosting - caused by years of abuse! Basic psychology - not rocket science!
Liz and Len
You have allowed yourselves to be drawn into a spiral of negativism, especially towards each other’s posts.
This is not only off topic but also rude. Have a cup of tea, a walk outside later in the evening to smell the flowers, and come back refreshed.
Please.
Gender wars are not likely to produce positive results - we tend to be locked into one side or the other from birth.
Several Jameses, a Venise and a Duke have also just about used up their quota of comments, and as for the Friar - today’s Sunday, so perhaps he is off God-bothering somewhere.
Please, all of you, play nice!
One more - there was never such a thing as an agent orange “bomb”.
Agent orange was an aqueous mixture of herbicides and defoliants, mainly 2, 4T and 2,4,5D.
They were sprayed onto forests from the air to remove the forests under which the Viet Kong sheltered.
Among the negative consequences was a substantial cancer risk to exposed people and the usual environmental nasties when forests are killed.
LIZ 45
You do appear to be a very well balanced person, not surprising as you seem to have a chip on both shoulders.
“You obviously have a superior view of yourself, in fact of most males”
I would tend to agree with “many” but not most and it may have escaped you but instead of being a good example to the male of the species your gender seem to have decided to surpass us mere males in almost all the bad points that you so dislike.
Women are now at the top of the food chain in many old male only precincts.
You are now equally as good drunks, foulmouthed, sexually predatory and much less careful in your choice of bedfellows, crime stats show you catching up with us at an alarming rate in all but crimes of violence, your ability to procreate and then become pathetic parents at an ever younger age and generally as a single mother is very sad.
Women are now joining us in diseases which, before, you were much less prone to, alcoholism, drug addiction, many cancers, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, suicide and accidental death.
You say you suffered years of abuse and that is inexcusable, no matter how and by whom and if that has coloured your attitude to men in general it is understandable but not healthy.
I do hope that your situation changes and you get a chance to have a happier and more fulfilling life, unfortunately I am not qualified to advise you on how to make it happen but wish you the best anyway.
VENISE - You’re absolutely right, and I apologize! I should learn how to back off at certain times! I also need to recognise when I’m being baited, and let it go!
LIQUID LEN - It was the violent aspect I was speaking about. It’s not that much off topic, as it’s the overall attitude to conflicts of different kinds, including wars that I was relating to. It’s the psyche of why violence is calmly perceived by so-called ‘leaders’ as the solution.
As to sole or single parents, being largely female - that’s stating the bleeding obvious isn’t it? Could it be that too many males run away from their responsibilities. Plant the seed and run? I note that there’s no acknowledgement on your part re the responsiblities males should adopt. If they always insisted on using condoms, unless they wanted to father a child, half the problems would be resolved. But no, let’s just blame the mothers!
The most preventable danger to a woman’s health and life, between the age of 18-44 is Domestic Violence. It’s the 2nd highest cause of homicide in the US during pregnancy, (after complications arising from a pregnancy).
So the most dangerous health hazard to women, from girlhood up, is violence - by males. That’s not projecting a women’s lib agenda or viewpoint, it happens to be fact. And this fact is in evidence in all cultures and all nationalities around the world. Look at the areas of most conflict, (war zones) and see who’s exhibiting all the power? It aint the women and girls, that’s for sure! Look at the roles that are believed to be the most important, and they’re roles traditionally performed by men - and all too frequently to female’s disadvantage.
Whether it’s war or economic hardships caused by such things as the GFC, women are the hardest hit, and have the least power and position to overcome it!
FRIAR HILARIUS: 1) As soon as, scientific knowledge and modern medical practises started to save lives- without the witchcraft and mumbo jumbo of shamans and priests- the various religions of the world started to rock on their pedestals-badly.
2) Then there was a genius called Charles Darwin who showed the world that species evolved, rather than having been suddenly ‘created’, religion started to reveal itself to be the slightly sick joke that a lot of us know it to be.
3) The Darwinian Theory Of Evolution started to be taught in schools and universities-unless you went to school in one the rust-bucket southern states of the United States, or had the misfortune to be the child of the seventh day adventists or some other back-woods hillbilly religion.
I imagine you think god created the world 5-6 thousand years ago. Tell me, I) Who created god, and why did he do this miracle 5-6 thousand years ago? And how was it exactly that it coincided at precisely the same time as ignorant and superstitious shepherds started to tell their scribes about wonderous miracles?
So, sorry, old chum, ah one other thing. If Christ did putter around with miracles, why did he cure one blind man, but not all of them? Why did he cure some lepers, but not wipe out the disease altogether?
Why did your god create women just to have them reviled and made subordinate to a whole lot of men who feared women? How it is the fervent suicide bombers come from virgin young men? How is it the Catholic Church refuses to admit the existence of women unless they labour in menial jobs?
Why did religions emerge at a time in man’s past when man was barely out of the stone age?
Why were people tortured and threatened with an auto-da-fé, like Galileo, when it was discovered that the earth revolved around the sun?
None of these obscenities were done by a god. They were done by the very people who stood to lose most if the truth ever got out. Priests, shamans, rain-makers, and mendicant sooth-sayers. They are the ones who have been losing out, trouble is, they still persist. Only they’ve become something to be laughed at.
Then try this one on for size: It comes via a fervent, dare I say devout, believer in god. His name is Steve Fielding. He said that Climate Change didn’t exist, because god hadn’t thought of it!
I leave you in the not-so-safe hands of terminal nit-wits like him.
JOHN BENNETTS - “One more - there was never such a thing as an agent orange “bomb”.” I didn’t use the word bomb did I? I know what agent orange is. In fact, there was a stink a few years ago as some councils were using it to kill off grass etc along roadsides and other places. The workers were suffering the effects, and people were rightly concerned at the health risks. The US continues to deny responsibility in relation to Vietnam. In fact, have they lifted the sanctions yet?
I don’t buy food from Vietnam, for example, fish, as I don’t trust the area it may come from. A recent documentary on this country only reinforced that view. Poor things, I’d like to support them though!
Liz, yes you did use the phrase Agent Orange Bomb.
The Friar picked it up immediately. Perhaps we are of the same generation, to have these things engraved deeply into our spyche. I eventually got round to giving a pointer as to where the confusion may have originated.
Re sanctions…
USA creates sanctions against many countries, much as fruit grows on trees. Vietnam, Eastern Bloc countries, Cuba, South American states… they have all been circumvented easily and immediately by good old capitalism. Yes, the God Capitalism, the same one which is worshipped by so many, especially in the USofA. Capitalism which knows no borders, is beholden to no government and bows down to no lesser god.
And I do not eat food from Vietnam either, not because of the possibility of Agent Orange type contamination. I don’t like my prawns and fish to grow up in dilute sewage. Although, my sister worked there for a year or two and raves about the food…
JB
Liz, yesterday, 1:15pm.
jb
Venise
Your questions deserve an answer but not here. If and when I have time I will respond in my own blog space and advise you accordingly.
Everyone
Returning if we may to the original topic I quote the following from the initial message :-
“In recent decades, Remembrance Day has been subtly changed, from an “appreciation” of sacrifice, to a more fuzzy humanist reflection on loss. But its purpose remains to sanctify unthinking sacrifice for national purpose.”
If I read this statement correctly it seems to be suggesting that some forces are at work to change the nature of Remembrance Day for some inappropriate purpose. Elsewhere the article speaks of a death cult.
With the passing of so many WW1 and WW2 defence personnel some change is inevitable, as their children and grand-children probably struggle even to understand the motivations of a different time.
What seems certain is that men and women who serve in war time and civilians also are changed and often deeply scarred by the experiences
The fact that they partly supported the aims of the wars in which they fought probably complicates their later reactions, and in some cases deeply felt guilt can result
It is easy to say they should have thought of all the consequences before willingly participating, but in the end who can judge fairly if they were not similarly motivated and involved?
I would have thought pastoral care and concern is warranted, especially where there is guilt and sincere repentance
Those who choose to be wise after the event while lacking compassion are I think missing the point of Remembrance Day
My own view is that war is a human compromise resulting from human failure to optimise the benefits of peace
Remembrance of loss should not be contaminated with any political or social agendas
When we engage in military battles or verbal quarriels I imagine God is saddened
It didn’t have to be like that if all followed the teachings of Christ always
Humans consistently fall short of the ideals God has offered us
We should not condemn … we should try to understand
Above all we should aim to win the peace
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
PS Remembrance of past loss should never imply its future inevitability, but until we stop using war as a tool of policy … loss is the price. We ought to establish before fighting a war that the losses are going to be reduced to the absolute minimum. At the moment I doubt that society really cares about that, and we go on living “normally” while letting others carry all the risk. Nothing it seems must get in the way of our personal gratifications and pleasures even while we send young people to die for us. There is much that needs to change.
Liz
I believe your concerns for others are genuine
I have a moral question for you
A madman has shot and killed several children. You are in a situation where you see this madman about to kill another child. No one else is around. You see that someone has loaded a gun but has been shot dead by the madman before he or she can fire it. The gun is within your reach.
Would you use it?
Friar Hilarius
LIZ and JOHN BENNETTS: [Edit]. Vietnames food is su..per..b. If there is one thing I’ve done in my travels it is to learn to enjoy the food available. I believe Vietnamese food is marginally ahead of all the provinces of China. Not only did their own cuisine evolve, they took on board elements of China and France. If looking at a map of Asia and going west from Vietnam almost immediately one heads into food which is inflamable, Laos, Cambodia-not as much as Laos, Thailand, Burma and India. Anyway, enough of travel.
BTW John, not all Vietnamese prawns are grown in muddy estauries.
For God’s sake FRIAR MARCUS, [Edit - please refrain from using insulting language when referring to other commenters]
ok, so we are talking about food now? yummm.
Venise - I agree with you although Vietnamese food would not be my first, second or even third choice. They certainly make some great food in that part of the world. You are also getting a rough time from the editor!
I still reckon the best seafood I have ever had was at Salamanca Bay in Hobart. YYuummmm.
Ok - I have had just about enough of this article!
Venise
Your assertions and questions about religion have been dealt with at this link, since continued discussion of them here is too far off topic :-
http://friarhilarius.blogspot.com/2009/11/atheist-assertions-answered.html
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
It is mere illusion and pretty sentiment to believe war is not an integral part of human society. Therefore it remains necessary to maintain armed forces to protect against a foe who’s future plans, may be “murderous and vicious”. The wars that were so “senseless” were imperative to show loyalty towards our allies. Glance at the world map, then understand why WE need them.
I have travelled through many a battlefield, partaken in archeological diggings in Flanders, seen the endless rows of white marble. Therefore I grasp the vital importance of commemorating these dreadful loses. The courage those boys had to travel to the other side of the world and look death in the face, confronting there mortality not for the greater good or the war against evil, but for the man standing next to them, for the community. A notion which has vanished in our individualistic superficial society, in which one often not knows there neighbors name.
I find your article completely unintelligible and disrespectful.
p.s
I have recently signed up, and not to acquire a “skill upgrade” as I obtained those successfully completing University
LIZ45
“As to sole or single parents, being largely female - that’s stating the bleeding obvious isn’t it? Could it be that too many males run away from their responsibilities. Plant the seed and run? I note that there’s no acknowledgement on your part re the responsiblities males should adopt. If they always insisted on using condoms, unless they wanted to father a child, half the problems would be resolved. But no, let’s just blame the mothers!”
LIZ45
I was around in the late 50s and 60s when we had sex, drugs and rock and roll in vast proportions and both sexes took responsibility for their actions and only two folk of my age group managed to get pregnant, both parties got married and though no longer alive they remained faithful unto death (to the best of my knowledge).
As to your idea that it is the male’s responsibility, unless rape is the reason, from my memory it takes two to tango and I grew up in a society where hitting a woman was abhorrent and both parties accepted the moral responsibility for the results of unprotected sex..
I don’t know your background but I hope that whatever caused your anger has abated and that you “hopefully” are not a “victim” anymore.
JOHN BENNETTS - Yes I did. A mistake. I knew it was napalm. I do know the difference! A ‘slip’ of the fingers.
As for FRIAS and the gun question. I think I’d have the right to defend the child and myself. Self preservation is the strongest instinct we have - love for a child would be very strong with me. I’d hate it, but in the spur of the moment, with adrenalin pumping, being scared witless etc - yes, I’d probably use the gun! I don’t know! I hope that never arises.
I hate guns!
A long time ago, a person who was very drunk and was angry with his sister for taking too long on the phone, threatened her with a rifle. I was almost 9 months pregnant. They told me it wasn’t loaded - (scared I’d give birth on the spot?) but years later told me it was! I’ve hated guns ever since!
ANDREAS - Why does war have to be an integral part of human society? If we’ve learned that to be so, we can ‘learn’ it to be something else. Like using other means to resolve conflict. Do you think it’s OK for a person without a uniform to take life? Why the distinction? Most wars have been started over land, property or resources or all three. The Korean War started and ended in the same place. The Vietnam War started from a lie. The people of Afghanistan weren’t responsible for 9/11, nor were the people of Iraq! How can it be OK to “support” mass murderers like Bush, Blair and Howard? I’m confused! No logic!
Politicians rant and rave when there’s a bombing that kills scores of people(horrific and tragic as that is) but don’t blink when they deliberately and without justification order the military to use the most awful means to kills hundreds at a time. How can we take the high moral ground and yet exercise that sort of behaviour?
The first thing to do is to ask yourself who benefits? Who’s making money out of the wars I mentioned, particularly the current ones, and there you have the real criminals and perpetrators. Look at the investments etc of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Karzai etc!
In the Bush Administration, inner and outer govt people, there were at least 30 with interests in oil? Probably still have those interests. Boy, how the money comes in! Couple this with the military manufacturing companies - weapons, ammunition etc!
They’re laughing! Bush handed out the contracts to companies like Halliburton/Shell etc, to clear up and ‘be close’ to the oil industry before the first bomb was dropped on Iraq!
I’m off to bed! G’night all!
Liz - Bush, Blair and Howard are mass murderers? chuck in Menzies, Curtin, Hussein, Churchill, Rudd et al to be more consistent.
Do you believe diplomacy to be the saviour of all ills in this world? my question is, if diplomacy does not work are you comfortable to turn a blind eye to genocides (as an example) to then avoid conflict? Predictably, you will bring up the US’s involvement in Vietnam, Iraq and Vietnam. But, do you?
As an example, it is widely thought that Sadaam has murdered somewhere between 1 and 2 million people, thought to be closer to 2 million. Men, Women and children - old and young. How would you best handle this?
The US encouraged a rebellion against Sadaam, that did not work. The UN introduced economic sanctions, that did not work. The CIA tried to assasinate him, that did not work. The US armed neighbouring countries, that did not work.
What next? should we just put it in the ‘too hard basket’?
Now that we have sent and lost troops in Iraq, is that not a noble and peace worthy cause? yes, it is a foreign country but do we really want to live in a world that just sits back?
It is way too easy to suggest that the Iraqi war was concocted for the benefit of certain companies and individuals.
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Liz
The fact that some people benefit from wars is undoubted
This does not mean that everyone who goes to war does so to serve those who benefit
Most put on a uniform with a greater good in mind
It is not purely a question of whether the war-mongers exploit the young, though I agree that they do
It is a question of whether there is some evil which needs to be defeated
However much you hate guns, as I do, the question is whether a purpose is served that could not have been served in some better way
To over-simplify that question with hand-wringing is indeed to trample on the memory of those who gave their lives believing they were contributing to the triumph of good over evil and defending their mates and their families
I would never criticise the person who puts on a uniform in that spirit
I would try to discern, in honouring them, every possible means of ending evil without resorting to war. My suggestion is to stop all forms of personal pleasure while a war is in progress, in order to concentrate the minds of everyone on finishing the business with maximum speed, whether by advance to victory or withdrawal in defeat
We simply don’t think enough about what we are doing. To that extent I agree with Liz. I also agree with exposing the motives of those vultures who benefit from war. It shouldn’t stop there. Everyone should be involved, by applying every mental and physical resource to victory or recognising the need for a tactical retreat.
Anything less than total commitment to the problem and to solving it is to pretend that sacrifice can be delegated
I regard that idea, risking young lives, while the many relax, as morally abhorrent
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR HILARIUS: Please do not attempt to be snide with me. It isn’t off-topic which worries the editor, it is being rude to other commenters. You were the one who started all the religious clap-trap. And you have carried it on, right up to the point when you realised that no-one was buying that shonky merchandise.
Furthermore I have the word of the christian church do I? Those probably were the same ones used by Torquemada to thousands of victims of the the Auto da Fé. Gosh it must be frustrating for someone like you; no longer in a position to shut dissenters up.
LIZ45 and JOHN BENNETTS: As you can see Crikey are out to get me. When I addressed you I said something like oh no, Vietnamese food is su..per..b. If this was insulting you, then I apologise.
FRIAR MARCUS: I ticked you off for using one of the ugly ‘moral’ questions so beloved of the Steve Fieldings of this world. I imagine Liz would have seen straight through you.
Venise
I do not realise that no one buys peaceful teachings, but if this is not the time or the place for them I was right to move the non-relevant aspects, introduced by you, to another place
In what way is Torquemada relevant today? All Christians condemn torture
I am no way frustrated by the right to dissent
You are entirely free to visit the link I provided and leave a comment
In what way is that doing anything other than trying to keep the discussion here relevant?
Regarding the moral question I posed, what is your answer to it?
If there seen to be no other answer to evil than to destroy it, wars are likely to continue.
The only thing needed for the success of evil is for good men to see it and do nothing.
Friar Hilarius
MODERATORS
A bit disappointing from the moderators on this channel. If you’re going to let it turn into a brawl like it did here, why do you bother moderating at all? My little attempt at peacemaking (11:31am Sun) was moderated out and went unread, while you allowed personal insults to continue.
Venise, while it’s true the Friar overstated his case after he had already made it clear, you should note something else: at no point did he condemn anyone for being atheist, and he actively preached tolerance towards other religions such as Muslims early on.
Venise I like you, but you have made a practice of abusing people for expressing their religious belief, and of trying to impose your religion on them (your religion being atheism) in the most aggressive manner possible short of using physical force.
That’s enough. And now I’m going to preach my own religion at you, which is … tolerance. Enough. As for any counter-accusations that “they started it”, I don’t care. Show some tolerance and end it.
Live and let live, OK?
The rhetorical ‘rule’ that the first arguer to metnion ‘hitler’ losers needs to be updated/modufied to include anyone who invokes gods or their sundry avatars.
FRIAR - What do you think would happen, if the youth of the world refused to join the military? Conscription? Well, what if they decided en masse to go to jail instead.
There’s no excuse these days for people not to be informed, that govts in the main ‘fight wars’ not for freedom and other ideals of benefit to human kind, but for empire building, stealing of resources and other reasons, that on an individual basis would be criminal offenses. I don’t go along with the ‘wearing of the uniform’ nonsense, any more than I go along with ‘dying for the flag’ bullshit. All this rubbish is brain washing. There’s a whole unit engaged in doing whatever it takes, to get more young people hoodwinked into joining. When it comes to women, unless the majority of Australians are deaf, dumb and stupid, the ingrained sexism and sexual harrassment needs to be stamped out, before any self respecting woman takes the military on!
LIQUID LEN - It’s not a question of whether I’m personally a “victim anymore”. The fact is, that the ingrained attitudes to women has not abated. While one sex is oppressed and denigrated we all suffer from the type of society that allows that to flourish, and flourish it does. If you laugh at a sexist, racist or ageist joke, you are part of the problem, and don’t then have the right to tell the ‘victims’ that they don’t have a sense of humour for example. Until all men, personally and as a unit, make it very clear that they abhor the status quo, women like me who can speak out(and so I should) have unfinished business. Women’s sexuality is exploited(look at the ads on TV late at night) women’s reproductive life is used and abused; women still do not have equal pay, and this is just a few examples. We had to fight for years to allow women to have access to the same or similar educational possibilities. I’m not a ‘victim’, I’m as mad as hell - there’s a difference.
Instead of men having a go at one woman who speaks out, like me, they should take a closer inspection of the rest of their sex, and the society in general. If you can’t see that our society is infected by condoning violence towards women by men, almost as a right of passage, of protecting their ‘standard’ of living, then the society will be stuffed for years after I’m gone!
It happens in the military, it happens in the workplace, it’s allowed to happen in the Courts, and it happens on the streets, in the homes and in the schools! If we get rid of that negative aspect of our culture, the processes used to get there may have positive outcomes for some of our other ills! Crime, war and who knows?
I don’t want my 3 grand daughters to live in the same environment as I did - I want them to be whatever they want to be, and do it safely - with a right to Reclaim the Night(and the other 12 hours too). We don’t have it now. In fact, it’s not that long since judges from the bench would talk down a woman from being on the street at night, particularly if she was wearing a short skirt or had been drinking alcohol - she contributed to her own rape or other abuse! Tell me when that happens to a man when he’s physically or sexually assaulted. Tell men when a judge would tell a person that their car that was stolen, was only a ‘technical’ theft, because they left a window or door open. A judge in WA told the court, that a rape of a woman was only a ‘technical’ rape, as she lost consciousness through alcohol. Thankfully the law in NSW was changed in 2007, where he would be laughed out of the court room by the prosecutor. The law now says, that being drunk or unconscious is no defence, as the woman could not give consent, and so, consent was not given, and so a crime of sexual assault was committed. Well, hurray! It’s taken almost 109 yrs since Federation for justice in this area!
The law makers are usually men. Those who decide on what wars will be fought are usually men. Those who have the final say in all fields of justice, the military, govts etc are usually men. Those who make decisions re business, education etc are usually men. Women have paid a heavy price and continue to do so, due to this basic injustice. If I’m a ‘victim’ then all women are!
No way, AR. Amongst other things, this thread actually is about the meaning of life. Sorry about the inappropriately combative metaphor, but in this context you’re saying that many of us have to fight with both hands tied behind our backs.
Liz
Many of the matters you raise are not directly pertinent to this discussion.
In many cases I agree with you, though I will not engage in condemning the majority for the misdeeds of the few. Society as a whole could have done more, but attitudes do not change overnight. Many changes have occurred for the better, but it seems that your focus on the negatives obscures your view of the positives.
Those in uniform believe they are protecting a better way of life, and that remains the case for the majority of those who serve in the armed forces, regardless of defects in the way our countries operate
Perhaps we should all take more seriously the obligation to make our society work better.
Friar Hilarius
Friar, long time in replying but James got it right. Why can’t people take the responsibilty for their actions. Bush used religion and the Left Behinders to launch Iraq. Does that make the religion bad or Bush? My answer is Bush.
HEATHDON - I agree with your answer! Blair and Howard were/are just as bad though. They were complicit in the lies, complicit in demonising those of us who protested etc, and keep on perpetuating their evil behaviour/s!
Liz
You have stopped short of suggesting that Bush, Blair and Howard be tried for war crimes.
Why?
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR - I believe they should be tried for war crimes. I also agree with Julian Burnside QC who believed that Howard should’ve been tried for crimes against humanity re the horrific abuses, and cruel and degrading treatment of too many asylum seekers under his care and responsibility.
The following action took place in the US on April 24 2007.
Kucinich announces impeachment charges against Vice President Cheney
Kucinich introduced Articles of Impeachment against Cheney in the Congress today.
“Because I believe the vice president’s conduct of office has been destructive to the founding purposes of our nation. Today, I have introduced House Resolution 333, Articles of Impeachment Relating to Vice President Richard B. Cheney. I do so in defense of the rights of the American people to have a government that is honest and peaceful.”
He goes on to set out the case for impeachment, and the reasons for each separate indictment. The first one to be impeached would be Cheney, and thereafter Bush etc.
Go to Information Clearing House, and put the subject in their search engine!
I also watched it on YouTube. It could be still available. He’s a very brave man!
LIZ45
While I understand your frustration and outright anger I fear that what you ask for is way out of reach, for what you really appear to want is fair treatment and justice for all regardless of sex, religion, race, age, medical status or intellectual ability.
We live in an imperfect world governed mostly by the greedy and corrupt, that includes the Judiciary, Police Force, Churches, Politicians, Armed Forces, Big Business, and the list goes on.
Women continue to be treated as second class citizens or much much worse in some cultures (poor choice of words I know) and as is usual the world leaders are almost all men (Germany being the exception to the rule) and the boys clubs that represent the power are not open to the fairer sex certainly not the Freemasons.
I was bought up in a family where women were revered and respected (unless they proved otherwise) and we bought our own sons up the same way and I am happy to say they have not let us down.
Having said that, many other families (many very wealthy) I know make no attempt to insist that their children understand the strict principles of fairness and common decency that we hold sacrosanct and more and more I see the worsening of our values in the way we treat each other.
I have no time for Religion as having been exposed to 6 years of boarding school in England and subject to the not so tender mercies of the Dominican Monks who ruled our existence.
You say that you hate war; I can assure you that nobody hates war more that those of us who have had to fight them and despite my time in the Army I promised that I would break my sons’ legs should they head for the recruiting office.
Fortunately I have lived most of my life and that does not bother me much except for my concern for my sons as the direction the world is heading shows that the light at the end of the tunnel is probably a train.
You deserved better and it sounds like society and men in general have let you down, for that I am sorry.
Bush Howard, Blair, hate them all but I was just trying to explain”blame the believer and not the belief” not start a new thread.
Dear Duke
As an example, it is widely thought that Sadaam has murdered somewhere between 1 and 2 million people, thought to be closer to 2 million. Men, Women and children - old and young. How would you best handle this?
The US encouraged a rebellion against Sadaam, that did not work. The UN introduced economic sanctions, that did not work. The CIA tried to assasinate him, that did not work. The US armed neighbouring countries, that did not work.
What next? should we just put it in the ‘too hard basket’?
No just dont fund his weapons arsenal in the first place.
May I recommend Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi for another view of the history of that part of the world.
And despite the “do no harm” rules of engagement of the UNPROFOR effort in ex-Yugoslavia, the results were not edifying. An arms blockade resulted in a near-monopoly of weapons by forces having access to the federal armories. The UN got into a cycle of brokering one ceasefire after another, which did little more than allow aggressors to consolidate the frontiers they had blasted out in the course of violating the previous ceasefire, as the UN looked on. Polman Linda’s devastating 2004 account of the UN’s role in the catastrophe, titled “We Did Nothing”, may actually have understated the role the UN played in hampering the victims’ ability to defend themselves. The war was only brought to an end by NATO acting outside UN’s license with much more aggressive ROE.
LIQUID LEN - Thank you! But I’m not the only one. I speak on behalf of all those women who are being abused now - today; who are living in fear of when their partner/husband comes home. What mood is he in? Are you on time preparing for or getting the meal ready? All sorts of things twirl around in your head, while you supervise play or homework or bath time or? It’s the expectation of something happening - maybe; that is so exhausting and mentally debilitating. The relief when nothing eventuates, and the anguish and brain storming when it does - exhausting. You realize after you leave, that nothing you did would’ve caused it or prevented it - you’re just not meant to win? Then you get up for work in the morning, and off we go again!
If the number of women in this country is 6 million, then over 1 million 250,000 are being abused each day, every day. This will cost the country $15 billion during the next year. Apart from the human misery, we can’t afford that waste. Then you look at the population of the US or an African country and apply the same maths or even higher stats. IF the society looked at this issue honestly(instead of insisting that the survivors shut up?) and really wants to change it, we can. It seems to me, that too many men believe, that if they give us equal rights or whatever they have to lose something, and fear fuels the complexity. I’m still at a loss to recognise the reasons why a human being who professes to love you, forces a lifestyle on you that is so stifling that normal daily living is almost impossible. But for one reason or another(frequently financial - kids?) you are immobilized. You still love him for a time, and you just want the oppression to stop. Slowly, it dawns that you’re not really loved, and nothing will change unless you change it - and leave!
Now, when this type of abuse is caused by the state(govts) and there’s war and other acts of violence perpetrated on unarmed people, the results are the same. Women and children are the worst affected by wars, starvation and other human horrors. They are the poorest and have the least power and tools at their disposal to be caring, loving people. They then raise the next generation in this environment, and off it goes again! We must stop the wheel from continuing its turning in this manner - one bit at a time! There’s a saying ‘think globally, act locally’. I reverse this, ‘act locally, gain globally’?
Part of the solution is insisting that govt’s first priority is not the war machine - as regardless of what we might think of each individual aggressive act of violence or each country we invade with violent intent, we all should realize by now, that it’s never solved anything - ever. I suppose Hitler and other despots are the exceptions. There always comes the time, when talking takes place. Why not try that first? That would be really smart.
Look at Hiroshima? Perfect example. First the bombs, then?I read an article about someone who was told he was an idealist, and he said, ‘it’s idealists who make things happen’ - or words to that affect! Ghandi? Nelson Mandela (my hero).
Today is proof that when people are abused, either by individuals or the state, the damage is ongoing and awful. I shed tears all the way through the speeches! I hope it helped those ‘little children’ in those adult bodies!
For those that are vehemently against war, I still have not seen one thread that suggests an alternative to diplomacy, that is, if diplomacy did not work. Refer my post on Sadaam.
Liz
What would happen if the youth of the world gave up all their personal pleasures and used the proceeds to help the abused and homeless here and the abused and poor everywhere?
They might not need to be conscripted if the world lived in peace
Ideals are wonderful … maybe you can explain why so few believe in them
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
LIZ45
It shed more than one tear when I watched the PM’s speech but like you cynicism runs strongly through my bones and I can clearly remember that the Salvation Army Homes featured greatly in the abuse and when you can’t trust the Salvos who can you trust.
I have a legal and my wife a medical (Nursing) background and over the years we have both had to deal with battered wives whom the system failed miserably and continues to do so to this day.
You are quit right when you say that wives and female partners are at a huge disadvantage in most cases because of financial constraints being used against them and their children by cowardly abusive and sick men and no one seems to be able to find a way around that “YET”
Back in the 80s I was called upon to investigate a number of nursing homes in the Melbourne’s South Central area in the company of a Council Health Officers and a wonderful Social Worker from the Community Care program and what we found and saw was horrendous.
Old and young mentally ill folk were packed into conditions that were enough to make even us hardened folk sick and ashamed and the most damning thing of all was that many of these homes were owned by Doctors.
Cleaning them up was a huge task confused by their control being shared by Local Government, State Government and Federal Government all of whom spent a fortune in legal fees blaming each other and generally not giving a hoot about the tenants.
Thankfully there is far greater accountability and accreditation these days but the system is far from perfect yet.
My wife also in the 80s worked as a midwife in a large Maternity Hospital in the city and I well remember he telling me about having to make up fictitious medical reasons to keep many African women in hospital after giving birth, for much longer than normal in order to give them enough time to “heal” as upon their return home the Husband would immediately demand sex and she would then have to return as a Gyno patient. No medical or legal authority would dare to attempt to help these women and some were actually killed for refusing sex.
Along with those problems would come the horrific stories of women with brutal and disfiguring circumcision damage done “AFTER” they had come to this country, once again no authority would touch this subject for fear of a political backlash and since it would likely cost them their lives, the women would not dare to complain to the Police who would refuse to act anyway, this I know first hand.
War is mostly a messy affair with money and power sharing the responsibility for many of them, religion and cultural differences and sheer large scale banditry responsible for many others.
In Vietnam the was prolonged by the lobbying of the Armaments Industry (see Iraq and Afghanistan as well) as they wished to make huge profits selling their deadly products to the US Government and the clout of the CIA who was by then a self funded organisation by virtue of its massive interests in its well established drug exportation program.
I never forget a bumper sticker I saw during the 1986 nurses’ strike that read “Life will be fair when hospitals and schools are properly funded by Government and the Military have to have cake stalls to fund themselves”
Too true the Military budget keeps on going up so we can have Submarines that don’t work in the North Sea, expensive obsolete helicopters that crash and kill our soldiers and sailors, an Air Force that has old and hard worked cargo aircraft which we use for humanitarian work and need to be replaced but instead we get brand new F25 multi billion dollar fighter jets as toys for the boys that will never see combat.
And please don’t bring up the “refugee” PROBLEM; I am now officially ashamed I voted for Mr. Rudd who left that program “Rudderless”
I need a drink!
Heathdon - I can’t recall you referring to Bush, Blar and Howard as mass murders.
Unless you are infact Liz45?!? hmmmm
Duke
Liz45 added to my example of Bush. I was trying to explain that I did not want to refer to the whose worst arguement.
As for your anti war question. I refer to von Clausewitz(?) War is when one state wants another state to behave in a certain way and the other state resists with force. I am against being an invader in war but would defend my home until death. Just dont expect me to work for the sake of Haliburton etc. in foreign lands.
Once again may I recommend Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi for another view of the history of that part of the world.
NO, he’s not me!
Duke - Saddam Hussein? Both the US and Britain allowed Saddam to do as he wished, as long as they could count on him when they wanted a short cut to ???in the Middle East. Saddam was going to stop using US dollars re oil industry and other areas. The US could not let that happen, also, the US hasn’t discovered any new oil wells since the 1970’s I believe. Project for a new American Century(you can read this on line) is a good place to start understanding why the US wanted to get rid of Saddam. They weren’t too worried about what he did to his own people, otherwise they wouldn’t have allowed him to butcher his people while they watched and allowed him air space, at the end of the 1st gulf war. They encouraged the people to rise up against him, and then realized, that ‘better the dictator you know, than one you don’t’ - they then changed their minds. Saddam used mustard gas on the Kurds and butchered those who stood up to him in??(forgot the name - it was these people the US used when they charged him - ironic isn’t it?)
Each time it was brought up in the UN, both the US, Britain and others shut it down! (Either prevented resolutions, or voted or vetoed against them!) That’s a brief summary of why he was allowed to have so much power - he was useful! Haven’t you seen the photo of a young Rumsfeld shaking hands with him? Just about everyone attached to the White House,and Thatcher’s govt had ‘lovely’ visits with him - he gave them lovely gifts, they let him do as he pleased - regardless! The only people who suffered were the Iraqis who dared question him. Even so, most at least could feed their families, go to schools, and Iraq had the best Universities in the Middle East. (read some of ‘Baghdad Burning’ - “Riverbend” a young Iraqi woman who started a blog several months before the shock and awe campaign, until October 2006/7? when her family had to flee, like 4 million others - 2 million inside the country, 2 million outside!) A real insight into the truth on the ground. I read it first as a library book - very informative and chilling! Brave young woman! I often wonder how she is, and her family too of course. She has a younger brother - both parents! Fingers crossed!
I often ponder, with all the lives lost at war, what medicine and other advancements we have missed out on due to war. Many brilliant minds have perished.
But still, lets move Iraq aside for its complexity, how do we solve and avoid conflict where diplomacy does not work? I don’t think it is possible to avoid armed conflict the more I think about it, unless that is, the entire global population turns into pacifists!
MarkD - “meaning of Life”? Precisely my point so WTF do sky fairies & the bronze age phantasies of foam flecked misogynists have to do with the price of fish?
What’s causing the conflict? If it’s empire building, like the US is doing in the Middle East, then in theory anyway, the UN should be preventing the US or Britain for that matter from doing this. But the UN is pretty useless, and that’s the way the US likes it - even though they criticize it when it suits them. Bush didn’t even pay his dues - damned cheek of him to them start whining! Howard, Downer etc ran the UN down for the same reason, because they wanted to use this as a springboard to invade Iraq. What needs to happen, is the peoples of the world to take notice and start making demands. It would be very helpful, if the american citizens weren’t so apathetic - they can’t even be bothered voting most of the time.
If it’s resources? Why can’t the US buy them like others have to? No, not good enough! Certainly not with oil anyway. They use more than their share(obscene amount) but they want to control it - who gets it and how much? The real rulers of the US are corporations, so they tell the white house what to do. They’re greedy and ruthless - and don’t really care what they have to do to get what they want!
There’s $16 trillion of oil and gas in the Caspian Sea. The US has wanted to get its hands on it for a good while. Clinton administration had meetings with the Taliban- GW Bush did too, before he was president. They want the OK to build a pipeline through Afghanistan - Taliban was holding out; Bush Admin. said we’ll bomb the hell out of you later in the year(2001) then a few months this threat, 9/11. Straight away the administration thought of ways of using this for their goals - Project for a new American Century etc? Afghanistan & Iraq! Double whammy! Now, all we need to do is sell it to the stupid people - us!
(1) Some people enjoy wars and benefit
(2) Some people enjoy wars and don’t benefit
(3) Some people don’t enjoy wars and benefit
(4) Some people don’t enjoy was and don’t benefit
This could all be sorted out in peace-time … but who cares about resolving conflicts before they escalate into war?
We are far too busy enjoying ourselves
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR HILARIUS: Please refrain from wasting my time with links I will never look at.
Under the Australian Constitution we, the members of a secular state, have the freedom to choose our beliefs without earning the interference of self-satisfied bigots.
Inherent in the Constitution is the freedom to believe in atheism-which, in the face of Charles Darwin’s evidence in the Evolution of Species, Galileo’s evidence that the earth revolves around the son, the evidence of our medical scientists, our anthropologists, all the evidence that religion was born in an earlier stage of evolution, the giving of divinity to specious miracles which belong in the mind of four-year-old children [Edit]
Correction
(4) Some people don’t enjoy wars and don’t benefit
Indeed! An awful part of capitalism is to keep the masses ‘dumbed down’ and greedy too!
Why do people invest in capitalism, via shares for instance? Because they’re greedy. They want to get money back that they haven’t had to work for, otherwise, why do they do it? Then, when they tangle with people who are even more greedy than they are; get done and lost their money, they scream, ‘we was robbed’? Serve them right I say! There’s no way, even if I had money would I invest in uranium, asbestos, munitions manufacturers etc. I couldn’t live with myself and do that!
We live in a greedy environment. It takes a constant commitment not to get drawn in. I don’t have any money, so it’s easy for me. No money, no desire to join the rat race.
The corporate media take on the role of helping wealth dumb us down. That’s why they put s**t on TV; sensationalise the news or create their own, and dictate what’s important for us to know? Paris Hilton or what’s really going on in govt? Paris Hilton does the job better. Then they can do it all again on current affairs etc. Or there’s mindless entertainment called american comedy or some such! YUK!
I don’t have the answers, but I do know what isn’t working! Killing people by the millions and causing untold misery is not the answer?
Liz 45
The more I read your messages the more I am inclined to agree with a lot of what you have to say
It seems to me that you don’t like the world as it is … but have no clear idea how to make it better
One major missing ingredient is a sense of caring community.
In a village everyone knows everyone
In cities and suburbs they don’t
And many make no effort
Friar Hilarius
PS Maybe architects should be required by law only to build villages?
Unless we win the peace wars will continue forever
Retirement villages are NOT what I mean
Unresolved conflicts lead to wars
I am generation Y, the ‘said’ most materialistic generation yet.
I am an Investment Banker and moved to London to make more money, probably a capitalist. Whilst I greatly care about the world, poverty and would make larger tangible donations to these causes than most, I see things getting worse before they get better.
A world without war…. it won’t happen. Perhaps it could be said that the next generation of wars will be moreso about money than they have been before. I don’t like war and have first hand experience of what War can do to people. Whilst it is easy to say that the Iraq was a consiparacy and oil driven war, it is also not a balanced argument.
Diggers, like all dead, still need to be respected. We view Ned Kelly as a hero but he was a killer although many authors view his cause as noble.
The opposite to a death cult is a life cult … in Christian theology this includes eternal life
Our period alive is a blink of an eye compared to what follows
Friar Hilarius
I should have said that our period alive physically is a blink of an eye compared to eternal life
Friar Hilarius
Friar, if I were a church going man (I’m not) I would go to your church. I like your style.
FRIAR - I have a friend who says, ‘when you’re alive you live in clover, when you’re dead you’re dead all over’? I’m inclined to agree! I was brain washed so much as a kid by the catholic church, and I’ve been really worn down with their hypocrisy, that I don’t believe the ‘god bothering’ stuff! In fact, when I die, if my kids have a god botherer at my memorial or whatever, I’ll jump up and scare them witless! The churches have made lots of money spruiking their nonsense, and also(which is really hypocritical) got filthy rich! They then encourage people to put money on the plate ’ to help the starving kids in Africa’????Yeah, right!
I hate sermons, the offical ones and those made up on the spot! Drives me nuts! I’d prefer they show me, rather than lecture me while they do a Pontius Pilate!
I don’t have the answers. If I did I’d be known around the world, and life would be so much different - no poverty would come first, and justice. Peace is not the absence of war, it’s the presence of justice! Can’t remember who said it, but it’s good, really good!
James
You would be made extremely welcome
I would celebrate by replacing the unused month old biscuits
You would brighten up the services, and you might even like to join the choir
The ladies guild would give you a particularly warm welcome, and
You could help me write my sermons
Friar Hilarius
Liz
There ‘s a job for you making tea in the kitchen during services
Only joking
Actually you would be more useful helping James to write my sermons for me
If you promise to be good you could even do a sermon or two yourself
Or the whole service … at least you would keep everyone awake
Friar Hilarius
PS Liz I will let you into a secret … I am not a real priest
But I wish I was
Friar Hilarius
FRIAR - You remind me of a funny incident that happened about 30 yrs ago??Wow! That long! I used to be a member of the ALP (I got wise and left? - Hawke’s arrogant decision re another uranium mine?) and 2 branches were going to have a cricket match. One wag, a chauvinist said the men would play, and the women could look after the kids. Well……..talk about a red rag etc. My boys were teenagers, they didn’t need babysitting, and anyway, I had as much right to play blah blah!
Came the day, and I went in to bat and got out pretty early - a matter of numbers of balls, not runs?? Then came the turn of the chauvinist to bat. The other women, who were also pretty fired up about his comments, urged me to bowl????I got him out first ball! It made me smile for weeks - still does when I think of it! He’s no longer with us, but I never let him forget it! he did have the good grace to blush???(It was a fluke!!What fun!)
I know one really nice priest, well ex priest. He left as he wasn’t quite the type the church wanted. Said mass for gays, lesbians, aboriginals etc and was actively known to support them - I mean in protests etc. A priest giving communion to ‘this lot’ wasn’t a good look! He got married I think or maybe ‘lived in sin’ - don’t know, don’t care. I hope he’s still happy. A lovely gentle man!
So, while I make a mean cup of tea, I’ll decline thank you! My late litle Mum made great scones/home made strawberry jam, and freshly whipped cream - I didn’t inherit her talents!
I could imagine the sermons if James and I wrote them! What a hoot!
AR@6:55, I think you’re being deliberately obtuse. At least I hope it’s deliberate.
I happen to think God has everything to do with the meaning of life. More has been written by more people from that point of view than just about any other topic in human history. It’s more than a little arrogant of you, to say the least, to dismiss anything else along that line as an automatic fail, without need for further thought.
Don’t take AR personally, Mark, he’s an equal-opportunity sneerer at everyone, including God, describing himself as an “antitheist”.
Friar, earlier you posed this moral analogy:
“A madman has shot and killed several children. You are in a situation where you see this madman about to kill another child. No one else is around. You see that someone has loaded a gun but has been shot dead by the madman before he or she can fire it. The gun is within your reach. Would you use it?”
Suppose the gun was a sawn-off scattergun, and you knew from experience you were a lousy shot. You estimate you’ve got a 75 per cent chance of hitting the bad guy, a 50 per cent chance of hitting the child, and a 25 per cent chance of hitting other children in the same arc of fire. What then?
JamesMc - thanks, saves the bother of answering with a god botherer liker markD.
“More has been written by more people from that point of view than just about any other topic in human history.” The antiquity of stupidity is no justification for its continuation.
That may be the central question of belief, AR. I don’t think antiquity, or what the catholic church likes to call accumulated “authority”, ever convinced anybody to believe in a divinity. I think some people just do and some just don’t, and they first look to their parents for answers.
From the catholic point of view, that belief is considered to be an effect of the Holy Spirit. There’s an interesting biological theory that belief is a genetic instinct, having certain natural-selection advantages, and some have the gene and some don’t. (These two theories are not necessarily mutually exclusive by the way - the catholics’ Holy Spirit could in theory “enter your soul” by tweaking the believer gene.)
Accumulated canon fleshes out the details, but I’ve met a lot of people who reject all the canon yet still believe in a God. They often describe this god in vague expressions like “God is truth”. Doesn’t mean much to me, but who cares what I think? From an atheist point of view, accumulated canon could be simply the same sort of embellishment we fill in for our beloved but unknown heroes, like King Arthur.
Bottom line? No one is hurting anybody just by believing or not believing. It’s when they try to force their belief on others that somebody gets hurt — whether it’s the Christian boarding-school master torturing kids to save them from hell, the Taliban self-appointed enforcer of God stoning women for showing their face, or the old KGB 5th Directorate forcing church-goers into psychiatric facilities for “sluggish schitzophrenia”.
Live and let live, that’s what I say.
James
It was only a matter of time before someone asked the right questions.
Congratulations on being the first!
In order to keep the variables to the minimum, let us assume a triangle with all the people involved well separated
You have a clear line of fire and immediate access to the loaded gun, which is capable of precise aim (not a scatter gun). Also for added clarity you are a trained user of firearms and as near to 100% certain of hitting your target as it is possible to be
Once this scenario is resolved your added complexity can be considered. You are absolutely right to bring in extra issues … to approximate more closely the real life situation of trained soldiers in the field
For the moment … at its simplest … what is the answer where there is virtual certainty that the child’s life can be saved, at the expense of the madman’s? I personally believe the answer is clear, even though madness diminishes or removes culpability in the eyes of the law. It is a matter of who deseves the greater protection, at the expense of another.
I am considering your scenario most carefully, and given the fact that you have nominated a scatter gun I believe I would charge the gunman without firing, while calling on all around to take cover. If I was shot first that would end the matter in terms of anything I could usefully do. If I was successful I would have minimised greatly the potential for what the Americans so politely term “collateral damage”
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Friar, in your refined scenario, I’d shoot. Perhaps I’m not the best person to ask. I’ve never said that killing is “always wrong”. There’s always a but, starting with self-defence. Wherever there’s one but, there will always be others.
Thanks James
You would be right to suggest that moral dilemmas are rarely clear cut
Otherwise they would not be dilemmas
Perhaps the message from our examples is that it is important to eliminate all the best options before resorting to the most violent and least safe
This needs to recognise also that appeasement can encourage an aggressor
With the wisdom of hindsight it is relatively easy to see the early signals of aggression by Germany in Europe, Japan in China, and many others since
What is clear also that the world lacks a trusted mechanism for peaceful peacekeeping across international borders which would be as efficient as good policing within law abiding borders
We go to jelly when it comes to crossing international borders to stop the likes of Idi Amin and Pol Pot and other tyrants
This is what I mean when I say that we fail to win the peace, and as a consequence the innocent suffer inside countries. Waiting until violence erupts across international borders and then acting too late is indicative of poor management of the human race
I honour national differences when they are peaceful and creative … but not when they act as a cover for obvious human rights abuses on a large scale
The world has a long way to go in managing all its affairs peacefully for the benefit of all
A War on Poverty would be a great war to win, and it requires no casualties
I am an idealist who believes that idealism works if we try harder
If we can make land mines and cluster bombs we can distribute food, water & basic health
It is only a matter of the necessary will to win the selected battle
With Best Wishes
Friar Hilarius
Friar, I also think a war fought half-heartedly does more damage than one fought with a blitzkrieg approach. As a friend of mine said about early withdrawal from Iraq, “When someone’s got a knife stuck in him, pulling it out prematurely can do more damage.” (He was also at the 2003 protest.) I posted earlier on the misguided passive approach the UN used in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The lessons of Vietnam still do not appear to have been learned, judging by reports from the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal areas.
That’s the flaw in your otherwise well-argued suggestion that all the population should be intimately aware of war. Maybe not a fatal flaw, but still a flaw. As I said in the story about the US heroin in Vietnam, the problem began with the war being too much in the public’s faces. This led to Congress tying the army’s hands behind its backs. Without political interference at home, the US and ARVN and ANZ forces would have won.
maybe the moderator could tell me which bit of that last post was against the crikey policy and at the same time why previous post with obvious personal attacks are allowed through?
I just watched this. Interesting viewing. I also watched a DVD made in 2005 by an Australian documentary maker, Carmel Travers. It’s called, ‘Truth, Lies and Intelligence’ re Bush/Blair/Howard and many interviews etc, including Andrew Wilke. What’s really telling is the last 10 minutes or so - about the response of the Attorney General’s Dept? The one before Ruddock, whose name escapes me - didn’t like him though - too much like John Ashcroft of the US?Watch his actions on “Unconstitutional - the war on civil liberties’. It’s on the web too!
What You Didn’t Know About The War
This video is mandatory viewing to all supporters of the war(s).
Narration used in the video is DAHLIA WASFI. Her website is http://www.liberatethis.com/
Please also visit:
http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.ivaw.net/
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
http://www.wearechangevancouver.org/
JAMES McDONALD: Sorry, I’ve been so tied up with banal family problems that I’ve only just got around to reading the comments in depth.
Re: MODERATORS: You have my total support on this isue.
Re: FRIAR MARCUS: Yes, it probably seems that way to you James, cont…
I’M LEAVING A TON OF SPACE SO THAT CRIKEY’S HATCHET MEN/WOMEN CAN DO THEIR WORST.
But after a lifetime spent in the subject of atheism one gets to know the buzz-words put out by the not-so-godly believers.
Do you find Liz’s comments at all forceful, (Hi LIZ, keep up the good work!) both of us are passionate about the things we believe in; although I certainly agree that Liz is a much better writer than me, yet you find me objectionable.
May I ask you if you have any religious affiliation?
Cheers and fond regards
Venise
Hi VENISE, what’s going on? As I didn’t see the censored ‘bits’ it’s hard to know what the problem is. It’s a bit cute of the moderators to remove comments that might contain some swear words etc unless there were threats etc used? I don’t follow at all!
Yes, we are both passionate about what we believe in. I don’t think there’s that much difference between us. I’m just as aggro about religions as you are, although I come from a slightly different angle - I still hold them and their dogma in as much contempt as you do. Hypocritical bunch of ?????
Perhaps it’s because women are closer to the realities of what these bastards go on with. Perhaps we look at things differently. I wonder sometimes, if I’m not just a different sex, but living on a different planet - to men - a lot of men! Most men???
Take care!
Hi Venise,
I think since Monday this thread has developed a very peaceful tone. Full of disagreement still, but agreeable disagreement. It’s come a long way.
In particular I appreciate this: “Under the Australian Constitution we, the members of a secular state, have the freedom to choose our beliefs without earning the interference of bigots.” A great point, one of the best in the whole thread.
That freedom … it may not count as an article of religion in itself, but along with other freedoms that go with it, I think it’s worth defending as if it were one. So, rather than take sides in the God debate here in public, suffice it to say here that I believe in that. Hang it over my heart like a medallion.
Cheers
James
JAMES McDONALD: Wow, high praise indeed!
Thank you.
LIZ: Fortunately I have not had your abuse at the hands of men, I can’t imagine what you have been through, but yes, yes, and yes against all churches. Religions, born at a stage of man’s relatively early beginnings, have a common thread in that they make sure women are regarded as one of the lower forms of animal life. As breeding machines, as creatures to look up with awe and inspiration at their god-like husbands, and as in Pakistan where a woman can be sentenced to gang-rape because one of her brothers committed a minor crime. QUESTION: ‘at their god-like husbands; or as husband-like gods’?
Even I, without your experiences, have frequently asked in genuine bewilderment. “Are men the same species as women?”
Cheers, and thanks to both of you. And, oh yes, the moderators had me for breakfast over the weekend.
Venise with love.
Hi James - we’re worn out! It’s fatigue!
Cheers
Liz45
Liz and Venise, you may both be interested to read Robert Graves “The White Goddess” — that is, if you haven’t already got signed copies that you’ve read ten times.
Graves attempts to solve the riddle of a mediaval Welsh poem full of both Arthurian and pagan references, attributed to Taliesin. To solve this puzzle, it becomes necessary to takes the reader on the most amazing guided tour of pre-monotheistic religions and mythologies. This leads him to a theory that at the heart of all poetry is the loss of the primordial first deity in human culture, a goddess associated with the moon. Graves traces a pattern in which this goddess is sooner or later supplanted, subordinated and then banished when agricultural revolutions lead to a male sun/sky god and finally an abstracted God in everything. But, Graves claims, the archetype of that goddess still remains in the human psyche, explaining for example why so many Catholics are moved to contemplate Mary more than any of the male (or male-seeming) figures of the Trinity. An amazing read, whether you agree with Graves’ conclusions or not.
Hi Venise
I’m sure we’ll catch up again - soon!
Liz with love!
Hi James and Liz: I’ll keep an eye out for the White Goddess. I have yet another day to spend on legal matters. Hopefully I’ll geta break over the weekend.
Cheers
Venise