i wasn't expressing my dark point of view on the matter clearly enough. The full statement was:
- there is no "just war" that doesn't involve killing lots of civilians somewhere.
If you add some darkness to the following statement:
- Desert Storm was a good example of a "just war" that was carried out successfully
it was meant to imply that all other "just wars" were unsuccessful and did involve killing lots of citizens by the "good guys", because you cannot fight a war on land without killing civilians by accident, let alone the killing of civilians by tired, angry, and apathetic soldiers who have lost perspective, also known as war crimes.
You are right that it was well-executed and civilian casualties were exceptional minimal, but if you believe the reason for entering the war was "just", you aren't seeing the greater history of the region as it is. I'll get back to that reason after Vietnam and Colonization...
Vietnam...
Vietnam was a long war but the initial sale to the public was that it was a "just war", and I'm not saying the public bought that.
What I've
posted about Vietnam before should make clear what I think about it.
Colonization...
This is a clarification of what I mean when I say colonization.
I don't see colonization as just "those people over there are ignorant savages and we need to take over the place and be the bosses", I include the situations where an outsider empowers a political party in that country to do the dirty work for them of controlling some portion of the population to produce cheaper goods for export; through actual or economic enslavement.
There is no history of colonization that doesn't include actual or economic slavery as a means for profit, so why shouldn't the definition of colonization include instances where the international partners are using others to do the dirty work?
It gets back to this statement:
If your "tribe" doesn't follow the rules of your tribe when dealing with other tribes, they need to be persecuted and prosecuted by your laws. Failure to do so will always lead to future conflict.
That statement doesn't specific who the "future conflict" will target, because the conflicts in many states have been started by external parties.
The Brits:
Yeah, I know other europeans were involved, but the Brits stand out as they had the most profit to lose, so they did the most damage. When I refer to them it could also have been one of their partner nations.
the middle east
The Brits were the instigators in the Middle East before oil. They promoted cultural and religious differences to encourage conflict, weakening the Ottoman Empire before WWI because of the threat to sea routes. After oil, the Brits ensured that any majority political group in that region would stay too weak to challenge the Brits by empowering and arming minority political groups. What would they not do, to retain that power?
Did all of the British activities get into the history books? Or just the ones too big to be covered up? How many of the unknown activities caused deadly conflicts and left generations of scarred people with ideas of "just retribution" against their neighbors? So, some farmers along a border are murdered in the night and it appears to be done by farmers of a different ethnicity. That's not going in the history books, but when that political party gets some loans and buys weapons, then purges people of one ethnicity, it goes in the history books with no mention of the Brits.
The line between British Petroleum and Desert Storm is one of many straight lines, all stemming from Britain's decision to control that region's oil by upsetting political hierarchies through encouraged violence.
Ukraine...
This conflict with Russia invading Ukraine, this is just "colonization version n.nnn". It was done to maintain Russia's economic control of cheaply produced and cheaply transported natural gas into the EU, to prevent Western businesses from using Ukrainian reserves to replace Russian piped gas into the EU.
The collapse of the USSR left many pro-Russian members in Ukraine's political parties. When the hand of the West reached into Ukraine and found Ukrainian gas reserves, the hand of the West empowered the minority political party. It went on from there into the political upset of the election and militia invasion of Crimea.
This is the same cycle, with different attributes. Ukraine has the opportunity to become a strong democratic institution if they can avoid the backroom politics that exploiting their reserves will involve. But there is potential for corruption to occur in backroom deals that will primarily benefit select groups of Ukrainians and Western companies that will exploit the resources.
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Topic: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Personal Diary & Mutual Support (Read 115780 times)