"The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to
what is actually happening..."
I believe statements such as that are distracting. At its simplest, if one
person is an aggressor and starts a fight, Nature has decreed that the
intended victim fights back, and if possible, kills the aggressor. There's
a whole body of Eastern thinking - call it philosophy if you wish - that
deals with just that type of situation. Many wise men - far wiser than
you or I - have understood this and written about it realistically. These
wise men seemed to have no problem defining "bad guys" and "good guys." In
fact, the Bhagavad Gita takes place on the battlefield, where good guys
fought bad guys... because they simply had no alternative.
The bottom line is that the bad guy is the guy who is about to harm or even
kill either yourself or those you love dearly, no matter what his excuse.
To deny this is simply hypocrisy, because you know what you would do or try
to do if pushed.
"...we go on supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it
is very profitable for them...." This makes the assumption that we're all
too dumb to see through this. No doubt there is profit to be made from
weapons, but it doesn't take "our fear and paranoia" to see what's
happening around the globe. It's simply a matter of opening our eyes then
acting appropriately. Is everything we read true? Of course not, but if
even a fraction of the deluge of nasty information to which we are
subjected is true, then we ought to take notice and support our own defence.
Democracy? In Iraq? A red herring? Absolutely! You can't change people;
they have to want to change, and want to change badly. And sometimes even
that doesn't work.
Having said that, is there Another Way? Well, I'm afraid that most people
(who really don't want to change or even rethink their own paradigms)
ultimately learn only by pain in some form or other. And when, in some
quarters, attempts to change people through kindness is regarded as
weakness, there aren't too many other options. It's a binary world,
whether you like it or not... You could call it a quantum world if you like...
P.
At 12:24 PM 8/11/2006 -0600, you wrote:
The idea of good guys and bad guys in war is useless and distracting to
what is actually happening. War is a means to gain power over others. War
no longer makes a distinction between those who are fighting and those who
are not. Both are killed with equal intensity, although it is still
fashionable to claim the fig leaf of unintended collateral damage or a
tragic mistake. Make no mistake, as the tools of war become more
efficient and terrorism, which is the counter to those tools, become more
universal, no one will be safe. We are passing through a transition period
which has to end by people insisting on methods be used to avoid war and
the resulting terrorism. But then, every one knows this, yet we go on
supporting people who insist that war is necessary because it is very
profitable for them. They are able to continue their policy because they
know how to manipulate our fear and paranoia. But you say, real threats
exist against which we must be defended. Of course this is true, but this
is a never ending path that can not be fixed just by making every country
a democracy, as Bush plans. The obvious consequence of this naive
approach is being demonstrated every day in Iraq. We need to use our
creativity to explore another way. Think about that rather than the Segway.
Ed
Jed Rothwell wrote:
Terry Blanton wrote:
One comment was, imagine a Segway with a chain gun
rolling into a batch of bad guys and spinning wheels in opposite
directions while firing.
Hopefully, the next battlefield will have only bad guy blood spilled on it.
Can this gadget tell who is bad, and who is innocent?
- Jed
