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Published on Wednesday, October 24, 2001 in the Toronto Star
History Confirms War a Futile Business
by Dalton Camp While our allied air forces continue the
redistribution of the rubble in Kabul, the objectives and purposes of
this "new war" become, like the dust rising from that battered city,
more difficult to comprehend. Historically, there have been necessary
wars and wars fought whether necessary or not. But it is a futile
business, as history will confirm. According to one political
scientist, who counted the wars of the great powers, from 1495 to
1975, one or another of them has been at war 75 per cent of the time.
Astonishingly, one of the more peaceful centuries was the 20th,
although it has been, thus far, the bloodiest, as a result of its two
world wars. We have been, if you're counting, marching off to battle
much of our time, and here we are, marching off again. There must be
something to the view of man as a natural hunter and natural killer.
Still, one would think that man would run out of wars to make or
nations to invade or, that at some epiphanous time, nations would
conspire to stop the killing, that war would become not the last
resort but simply an unthinkable one. But here we find ourselves at
war again, against half the world in general and no one in
particular, pulverizing ruins and inflicting "collateral damage" - a
euphemism for killing - on people we know nothing of, in a land we
have nothing against, hope never to see, in a cause so rhetorical and
clothed so much in hyperbole as to be unattainable. I have been
reading of late about the Allied bombing of the German city of
Hamburg, in World War II, during July, 1944. At that time we (the
Allies) had achieved air superiority. We had also developed superior
aircraft and bigger bombs, as well as a means of deceiving the
enemy's radar defenses. On July 25, nearly 800 bombers attacked
Hamburg, a nearly helpless city, dropping their loads of 400- and 800-
and 1,000-pound bombs and incendiaries. The city was soon ablaze,
and without water to fight the fires; in this cauldron, the
temperatures would exceed 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. In one week, the
number of killed was put at 50,000 - just 1,000 short of those
British civilians killed by German attacks in the first four years of
the war. Of course, we "won" the war against infinitely greater and
more menacing evil than that of terrorism. But more to the point,
subsequent study by professional appraisers has concluded not even
all the slaughter of civilians, not the collateral damage wrecked
upon Hamburg, Dresden, Essen and the rest made any significant
difference either to the result or the war's duration. It did,
however, make a difference to those killed in the exercise, including
those of our own. War is an exercise in excess. We emerge from battle
choking on the blood of innocents. Self-deception is always helpful
to those of delicate sensibility. Hence, we do try to limit
collateral damage and ima
gine ourselves fighting for democracy, justice and - heaven help us - peace. Should
one be a refuge
e, a bombed-out peasant or a child crippled by a mine, a just war is a true oxymoron,
at least for
those accompanied by a
translator. I have come to be wary of Pentagon briefers. These films of direct hits on
arbitrarily
defined "objectives" remind one of the underlying irony of this "new war." Bombing has
become a kin
d of elliptical express
ion of military frustration. When in doubt, bomb. It is to politics what paving used
to be to polic
y. What is new about this "new war," at ground level where all wars are finally
settled, is that th
e terrorists in our mid
st - or in their caves - have found the equalizer to war as an exercise in technology.
Terror is an
extension of war by other means, including stealth, deception and disguise. It is not
new that it
is a war waged upon inn
ocents; the graveyards of Europe are crowded with those who perished in their
kitchens, in their sl
eep, in their unknowing. What is new is that the oceans no longer protect us from the
risks and per
ils of war because the
new enemy has new weapons of an original design and unfamiliar ruthlessness. Still,
when it is fina
lly over, when the struggle is exhausted, when we achieve another peace between
another war, we can
band together in reuni
on and, in common folly and arrogance, be reborn in our usual ways,
boasting of our superior means and inexhaustible bounty and, while
the world will not be the same, can never be so, we will hardly know
the difference. We should not, then, excessively fret over our
present condition but view it, as much as we can, as a passing
inconvenience. After all, were it a truly serious crisis, we would
not, in our considerable genius, be acting like fools and behaving
with such compulsive, ruinous mindlessness. The most dangerous man
alive these days is the one who justifies our present folly by
asking, "Well, what would you do?" Those who ask the question have no
memory and even less imagination. Perhaps, someone will awaken to
other Canadian options and possibilities before John Manley does.
Dalton Camp is a political commentator. His column appears in the
Toronto Star on Wednesday and Sunday.
Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
End<{{{
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