The Myth of War
-----Original Message-----
From: david
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 7:19 PM
To: Ken
Subject: Myth of War
War is a myth to most people, an abstraction filled with false meanings and empty symbols to help propagate the message that War is a myth. The Myth is created by those who have other motives then those they’ll give you on television. Never trust what you hear, find multiple sources of information about the same incident. Form your own opinion. Those in positions of power are just like you and me and can come to conclusions by an erroneous route or tainted information. We’re all human and fallible and susceptible to making mistakes and bad decisions. Knowledge is strength, an open mind is better then a closed one. Bush should owe up to the mistakes of the people below him and resign.
Powerful events often become symbols that are exploited by the myth builders. The use of these symbols lead to the easiest and most successful means to propagate the myth of war. Some symbols happen by accident and are soon exploited. The genesis of symbols and myths is helped along by the action or inaction of people in positions of power and influence. The assassinations of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Hohenberg the morning of June, 1914 at Sarajevo, Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitania off the coast of England, the invasion of Kuwait, 9/11; these tragedies were often proven to have been avoidable but the life saving communication from the friendly government’s intelligence never went out or was purposely distorted and vague; some were certainly unavoidable accidents others were not. Winston Churchill once absolved this type of maneuvering, like many before and since, by saying that the end justifies the means. This statement exposes the dangerous power leaders that use that premise have. The possibility of our losing the war against Hitler justified allowing 1,500 civilians to die tohelp incite the United States into the war. It worked and we won.
It’s probably impossible to ever stop leaders from using this polemic and these actions but realizing that the myth of war is created and then used to galvanize a population to do what common sense and human nature would otherwise thwart may help us avoid war and the cataclysm that it creates.
The reality of War is not noble; a patriot’s death or a suicide bomber’s death is just as devastating and painful as is the death of a loved one from a car accident; death is death. War is horror and pain and should be avoided at all costs. War destroys and kills and shatters more than lives; war shatters minds that can breed hate across generations. War is hate and begets nothing but more violence and hatred. Are we seen by the Iraqi people as liberators or as occupiers and invaders, there for our benefit or the Iraqi people’s benefit? Can we look at the situation from their point of view? The North Korean infantry was surprised to find that there was no resistance in the South when they invaded on a rainy Sunday morning in 1950. The North Korean soldiers were sent out to battle believing that they would find and fight American soldiers in the South and they were there to invade and destroy them. There wasn’t any American soldier there, these were lies told to them by their government that enabled them to begin the Korean War and is a situation that is dangerous to this day.
To say that we are at war for peace is the same as fucking for virginity. One action destroys the possibility of the other existing. The use of the tragedy of 9/11 to justify the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is to violate the memory of the innocent civilians that perished and to dishonor the pain that their loss created. How different is the torment of death in the minds of 9/11’s survivors and the civilian survivors of the bombings in Afghanistan? How should the Japanese people remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How should the pilot of the plane that dropped the bombs be remembered by those that survived and experienced the terror he brought to them? How should the Germans of Dresden recall the anniversary of the fire bombing? How should England remember the bombing of London? How will the families living in Baghdad remember the bombing and occupation of their city? How will we remember the carnage of the attack of 9/11?
This past 9/11 I wanted to recall the actions and inactions of the people that bore the responsibility to protect us. I wanted to try and understand what brought the war into our country and not only to contemplate the impassioned incitement of those that committed the attack. I want to remember what the people in power were doing and saying before 9/11 and how they reacted after the catastrophe. I want to study history and see the similarities of the myth of all the wars of the past as compared to the myth created today. I want to remember what to look out for in the signals and signs that make up the myth of war and try to understand the blind nationalism or religious dogma that are used to justify war.
Remember that only the participants of war ever get to see what it’s really like and many of those die before telling the rest of us how heinous war is. War is not what you see on AlJazeera, CNN, MSNBC or the BBC. My reality of war is watching the fire spew from the other side of a sky scraper rammed by a civilian airliner that is driven by a religious fanatic. War to me is realizing that there are people who hate you enough to destroy you and themselves and they are very close to my home. War for me now is watching the twin towers fall from the sky of the city I live in and see it disappear in a huge blooming, coagulated cloud of dust, debris and human death. The reality that is war for me is living with the recurring nightmares where I see from the window of my home a burning city under attack. The thought of losing my son to war is not a myth, it’s a possibility and the pain and anxiety it brings is real. And we’ve had one attack, how many has Israel had in the past year alone?
Life and relationships are never simple or easily explained by a few well written slogans and sound bites of propaganda. Life in the world and among all of us who live on it is very complex and takes people of great strength and intuition to maneuver in life without resorting to the use of violence. The people who create and disseminate the myth of war are probably not going to be the ones who die in the wars they wage. Money, revenge, pride and power have always been motivator to war, not love of humanity. Neither Bush nor Arafat will send their child to war to die for their country or religion. Why should we.
Let’s remember the horror of 9/11 but as a warning not as a call to arms. All is fair in war; there are no boundaries to the raging of war by those who declare it. Bio-terror, dirty bombs, nuclear bombs, stealth bombers, misinformation, lying, misleading, torturing; there is no limit in the minds of the warring to the violence they’re allowed to bring upon their declared enemy to subjugate or annihilate them. There are no rules or laws to war no matter what they tell you. The destruction of your enemy’s power to self-determine their fate is the goal and any means to attain this goal is justified in the warring soldiers mind. Kill civilians, bomb troops, shoot at unmarked cars, send suicide bombers into public places, kill and terrify children, poison populations, dismantle cultures, re-educate, arrest and incarcerate, kill all the males or try to kill everyone, it’s all the same and all admissible during war.
The alternative to war is communication, understanding, educating, and stopping the industry of destructive war machines, bombs and guns. No one knows where this idealistic alternative could lead us or how long it might take to succeed but we all know where war and death lead and it can engulf the world faster today then ever.
Ever wonder why the Swedes and Norwegians are so smart and civilized? They haven’t had a war in 200 years. No depletion of their youngest and brightest human resources. Our future is in the quality of education we give our children, there exists no greater priority.
No, I’ll never forget, not after experiencing 9/11/2001.
From: david
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2003 7:19 PM
To: Ken
Subject: Myth of War
War is a myth to most people, an abstraction filled with false meanings and empty symbols to help propagate the message that War is a myth. The Myth is created by those who have other motives then those they’ll give you on television. Never trust what you hear, find multiple sources of information about the same incident. Form your own opinion. Those in positions of power are just like you and me and can come to conclusions by an erroneous route or tainted information. We’re all human and fallible and susceptible to making mistakes and bad decisions. Knowledge is strength, an open mind is better then a closed one. Bush should owe up to the mistakes of the people below him and resign.
Powerful events often become symbols that are exploited by the myth builders. The use of these symbols lead to the easiest and most successful means to propagate the myth of war. Some symbols happen by accident and are soon exploited. The genesis of symbols and myths is helped along by the action or inaction of people in positions of power and influence. The assassinations of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Hohenberg the morning of June, 1914 at Sarajevo, Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitania off the coast of England, the invasion of Kuwait, 9/11; these tragedies were often proven to have been avoidable but the life saving communication from the friendly government’s intelligence never went out or was purposely distorted and vague; some were certainly unavoidable accidents others were not. Winston Churchill once absolved this type of maneuvering, like many before and since, by saying that the end justifies the means. This statement exposes the dangerous power leaders that use that premise have. The possibility of our losing the war against Hitler justified allowing 1,500 civilians to die tohelp incite the United States into the war. It worked and we won.
It’s probably impossible to ever stop leaders from using this polemic and these actions but realizing that the myth of war is created and then used to galvanize a population to do what common sense and human nature would otherwise thwart may help us avoid war and the cataclysm that it creates.
The reality of War is not noble; a patriot’s death or a suicide bomber’s death is just as devastating and painful as is the death of a loved one from a car accident; death is death. War is horror and pain and should be avoided at all costs. War destroys and kills and shatters more than lives; war shatters minds that can breed hate across generations. War is hate and begets nothing but more violence and hatred. Are we seen by the Iraqi people as liberators or as occupiers and invaders, there for our benefit or the Iraqi people’s benefit? Can we look at the situation from their point of view? The North Korean infantry was surprised to find that there was no resistance in the South when they invaded on a rainy Sunday morning in 1950. The North Korean soldiers were sent out to battle believing that they would find and fight American soldiers in the South and they were there to invade and destroy them. There wasn’t any American soldier there, these were lies told to them by their government that enabled them to begin the Korean War and is a situation that is dangerous to this day.
To say that we are at war for peace is the same as fucking for virginity. One action destroys the possibility of the other existing. The use of the tragedy of 9/11 to justify the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is to violate the memory of the innocent civilians that perished and to dishonor the pain that their loss created. How different is the torment of death in the minds of 9/11’s survivors and the civilian survivors of the bombings in Afghanistan? How should the Japanese people remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How should the pilot of the plane that dropped the bombs be remembered by those that survived and experienced the terror he brought to them? How should the Germans of Dresden recall the anniversary of the fire bombing? How should England remember the bombing of London? How will the families living in Baghdad remember the bombing and occupation of their city? How will we remember the carnage of the attack of 9/11?
This past 9/11 I wanted to recall the actions and inactions of the people that bore the responsibility to protect us. I wanted to try and understand what brought the war into our country and not only to contemplate the impassioned incitement of those that committed the attack. I want to remember what the people in power were doing and saying before 9/11 and how they reacted after the catastrophe. I want to study history and see the similarities of the myth of all the wars of the past as compared to the myth created today. I want to remember what to look out for in the signals and signs that make up the myth of war and try to understand the blind nationalism or religious dogma that are used to justify war.
Remember that only the participants of war ever get to see what it’s really like and many of those die before telling the rest of us how heinous war is. War is not what you see on AlJazeera, CNN, MSNBC or the BBC. My reality of war is watching the fire spew from the other side of a sky scraper rammed by a civilian airliner that is driven by a religious fanatic. War to me is realizing that there are people who hate you enough to destroy you and themselves and they are very close to my home. War for me now is watching the twin towers fall from the sky of the city I live in and see it disappear in a huge blooming, coagulated cloud of dust, debris and human death. The reality that is war for me is living with the recurring nightmares where I see from the window of my home a burning city under attack. The thought of losing my son to war is not a myth, it’s a possibility and the pain and anxiety it brings is real. And we’ve had one attack, how many has Israel had in the past year alone?
Life and relationships are never simple or easily explained by a few well written slogans and sound bites of propaganda. Life in the world and among all of us who live on it is very complex and takes people of great strength and intuition to maneuver in life without resorting to the use of violence. The people who create and disseminate the myth of war are probably not going to be the ones who die in the wars they wage. Money, revenge, pride and power have always been motivator to war, not love of humanity. Neither Bush nor Arafat will send their child to war to die for their country or religion. Why should we.
Let’s remember the horror of 9/11 but as a warning not as a call to arms. All is fair in war; there are no boundaries to the raging of war by those who declare it. Bio-terror, dirty bombs, nuclear bombs, stealth bombers, misinformation, lying, misleading, torturing; there is no limit in the minds of the warring to the violence they’re allowed to bring upon their declared enemy to subjugate or annihilate them. There are no rules or laws to war no matter what they tell you. The destruction of your enemy’s power to self-determine their fate is the goal and any means to attain this goal is justified in the warring soldiers mind. Kill civilians, bomb troops, shoot at unmarked cars, send suicide bombers into public places, kill and terrify children, poison populations, dismantle cultures, re-educate, arrest and incarcerate, kill all the males or try to kill everyone, it’s all the same and all admissible during war.
The alternative to war is communication, understanding, educating, and stopping the industry of destructive war machines, bombs and guns. No one knows where this idealistic alternative could lead us or how long it might take to succeed but we all know where war and death lead and it can engulf the world faster today then ever.
Ever wonder why the Swedes and Norwegians are so smart and civilized? They haven’t had a war in 200 years. No depletion of their youngest and brightest human resources. Our future is in the quality of education we give our children, there exists no greater priority.
No, I’ll never forget, not after experiencing 9/11/2001.
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