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If this is in the wrong forum, I apologise, and request it be moved to the right one. I just wrote up this little rant expressing some random thoughts in my head. Then I thought, "You know, Army.ca has a bunch of real smart bu66ers who could probably tell me whether I'm talking out of my arse or not."
So, not without a great deal of fear and trepidation over the prospect of getting my philosophical arse handed to me on a tray, I submit for the perusal of the wise ones of the great Army.ca, some thoughts of the man known as Xena (please be gentle, I'm not used to thinking deeply):
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“Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and -- thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.” - Robert Heinlen
Interesting thought. Although I have some reservations about it.
I'm not too sure violence has ever truly solved anything either, at least in the long run. In the short run, certainly. Wars get won/lost. Victors go home for tea and medals. The country that came in "First Runner Up" - not so much. Job's done. Heinlen's right - in the short term.
However, history is rife with examples of "people group A" wanting revenge on "people group B" for some atrocity committed against "people group A's" ancestors in revenge for a yet previous atrocity committed against "people group B", ad infinitum. We just keep trading atrocities, and moral outrage. It is clearly seen in the history of areas like the Balkans, most of Africa, the tensions between the English and the Irish, the Chinese and Japanese, etc. World War II was started, basically, as revenge for World War I and the treaty of Versailles.
One solution to the revenge merry-go-round: bin the Geneva Convention, League of Nations, the Hague, and the UN, and adopt a total war philosophy. When you fight someone, kill everyone, military, civilian, men, women, children, livestock. Destroy the infrastructure, and completely raze their real estate. Leave nothing standing. Leave no evidence that they even existed. What Scipio Aemilianus did to Carthage would be the blueprint. Don't leave anyone to want revenge later. I never said this option would give anyone the moral high ground. But it would be effective. In this modern era with nuclear weapons, it could be easily done. Although, with grave risks all round, both, if one's enemies managed to get their hands on nuclear weapons as well, and also through extensive ecological damage to the relatively fragile planet that we depend upon for our existence. It may be the logical conclusion to the point of view expressed in the quote above, but maybe not the best choice after all.
I've mentioned before, that I think it takes more courage to forgive an enemy than it does to kill them. I still think that. Even the passage from Starship Troopers quoted above doesn't change my opinion of that. And forgiveness wastes a lot less human life. But that only works with a political enemy. Or at least, an enemy who is capable of realizing that they've been forgiven, and that they are in the debt of the forgiver. Also, it obviously doesn't work on the battlefield. Once you get to the battlefield situation, you're waaay past where this would work, so please don't misunderstand me, I'm not denigrating the honorable work of soldiers throughout history in any way. I am an ex-soldier myself, and am entirely unashamed of that. But would forgiveness work on an enemy who has such religious-philosophical blinders on, that they wouldn't perceive it?
Nope - I don't think so. They would see it as simply more justification to fight for their "cause". The way Al-Qaeda and the Taleban perceive any sort of restraint as "weakness", or divine intervention on their behalf is evidence of this.
And please don't think that forgiveness is the same as any ideas of the namby-pamby hand-wringing "anti-war-ists" who don't think anything is worth fighting for. It is an entirely different concept. If something isn't worth conflict over, it similarly isn't worth forgiving either. There has to be substance to an offence for forgiveness to have any merit. If something "isn't worth fighting for" then the forgiveness for it is equally void. True forgiveness validates the substance of the dispute.
This is part of the difficult shift in our age. It's a military paradigm shift. We're no longer fighting countries. We're fighting belief-systems. We're fighting ideas. We're fighting against ideas with tatics that were intended for use against geo-political nations. The restraint that our militaries use (by quite rightly obeying the Geneva Convention, Hague rulings, etc!) has to be balanced with a philosophical-ideological aggression and ruthlessness to equal that of a total war, so that our ideas leave no room for their ideas. Our ideas have to supplant theirs. Their ideas have to be razed. We need philosophers, teachers and religious leaders on side and fighting these ideas just as aggresively as the soldiers on the ground.
Otherwise, we're just leaving ideas (and the people who have them) around that are going to want revenge later on. And I have no practical idea how to get those philosophers, teachers and religious leaders on board and working. They're a notoriously unruly bunch, and I suspect the task would be akin to herding cats.
So, not without a great deal of fear and trepidation over the prospect of getting my philosophical arse handed to me on a tray, I submit for the perusal of the wise ones of the great Army.ca, some thoughts of the man known as Xena (please be gentle, I'm not used to thinking deeply):
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
“Anyone who clings to the historically untrue -- and -- thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never solves anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor; and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.” - Robert Heinlen
Interesting thought. Although I have some reservations about it.
I'm not too sure violence has ever truly solved anything either, at least in the long run. In the short run, certainly. Wars get won/lost. Victors go home for tea and medals. The country that came in "First Runner Up" - not so much. Job's done. Heinlen's right - in the short term.
However, history is rife with examples of "people group A" wanting revenge on "people group B" for some atrocity committed against "people group A's" ancestors in revenge for a yet previous atrocity committed against "people group B", ad infinitum. We just keep trading atrocities, and moral outrage. It is clearly seen in the history of areas like the Balkans, most of Africa, the tensions between the English and the Irish, the Chinese and Japanese, etc. World War II was started, basically, as revenge for World War I and the treaty of Versailles.
One solution to the revenge merry-go-round: bin the Geneva Convention, League of Nations, the Hague, and the UN, and adopt a total war philosophy. When you fight someone, kill everyone, military, civilian, men, women, children, livestock. Destroy the infrastructure, and completely raze their real estate. Leave nothing standing. Leave no evidence that they even existed. What Scipio Aemilianus did to Carthage would be the blueprint. Don't leave anyone to want revenge later. I never said this option would give anyone the moral high ground. But it would be effective. In this modern era with nuclear weapons, it could be easily done. Although, with grave risks all round, both, if one's enemies managed to get their hands on nuclear weapons as well, and also through extensive ecological damage to the relatively fragile planet that we depend upon for our existence. It may be the logical conclusion to the point of view expressed in the quote above, but maybe not the best choice after all.
I've mentioned before, that I think it takes more courage to forgive an enemy than it does to kill them. I still think that. Even the passage from Starship Troopers quoted above doesn't change my opinion of that. And forgiveness wastes a lot less human life. But that only works with a political enemy. Or at least, an enemy who is capable of realizing that they've been forgiven, and that they are in the debt of the forgiver. Also, it obviously doesn't work on the battlefield. Once you get to the battlefield situation, you're waaay past where this would work, so please don't misunderstand me, I'm not denigrating the honorable work of soldiers throughout history in any way. I am an ex-soldier myself, and am entirely unashamed of that. But would forgiveness work on an enemy who has such religious-philosophical blinders on, that they wouldn't perceive it?
Nope - I don't think so. They would see it as simply more justification to fight for their "cause". The way Al-Qaeda and the Taleban perceive any sort of restraint as "weakness", or divine intervention on their behalf is evidence of this.
And please don't think that forgiveness is the same as any ideas of the namby-pamby hand-wringing "anti-war-ists" who don't think anything is worth fighting for. It is an entirely different concept. If something isn't worth conflict over, it similarly isn't worth forgiving either. There has to be substance to an offence for forgiveness to have any merit. If something "isn't worth fighting for" then the forgiveness for it is equally void. True forgiveness validates the substance of the dispute.
This is part of the difficult shift in our age. It's a military paradigm shift. We're no longer fighting countries. We're fighting belief-systems. We're fighting ideas. We're fighting against ideas with tatics that were intended for use against geo-political nations. The restraint that our militaries use (by quite rightly obeying the Geneva Convention, Hague rulings, etc!) has to be balanced with a philosophical-ideological aggression and ruthlessness to equal that of a total war, so that our ideas leave no room for their ideas. Our ideas have to supplant theirs. Their ideas have to be razed. We need philosophers, teachers and religious leaders on side and fighting these ideas just as aggresively as the soldiers on the ground.
Otherwise, we're just leaving ideas (and the people who have them) around that are going to want revenge later on. And I have no practical idea how to get those philosophers, teachers and religious leaders on board and working. They're a notoriously unruly bunch, and I suspect the task would be akin to herding cats.
