What appear not to be concidered here is the point of view of those who make the machines of war and that which fuels and arms them. One must also concider what happens politically and economically after the war. I was born at the start of the second world war and my Mother at the start of the first world war and we often pondered the reason why. Those who oppose war are often those who pay and receive no tangeable benifit. Those who favour it will be gaining money or power or both. best wishes, Peter. Subject: WENDELL BERRY: The Failure of War
from RESURGENCE #215 http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/home.htm THE FAILURE of WAR by Wendell Berry IF YOU KNOW even as little history as I do, it is hard not to doubt the efficacy of modern war as a solution to any problem except that of retribution - the 'justice' of exchanging one damage for another. Apologists for war will insist that war answers the problem of national self-defence. But the doubter, in reply, will ask what extent the cost even of a successful war of national defence - in life, money, material, foods, health, and (inevitably) freedom - may amount to a national defeat. National defence through war always involves some degree of national defeat. This is a paradox: militarisation in defence of freedom reduces the freedom of the defenders. There is a fundamental inconsistency between war and freedom. In a modern war, fought with modern weapons and on the modern scale, neither side can limit to 'the enemy' the damage that it does. These wars damage the world. We know enough by now to know that you cannot damage a part of the world without damaging all of it. Modern war has not only made it impossible to kill 'combatants' without killing 'noncombatants': it has made it impossible to damage your enemy without damaging yourself.
