Will People EVER Be Enthusiastic About War Again?

[Aldebaran]

@Ilsa_Lund

Respectfully, it is likely impossible for you to understand the kind of patriotic self righteousness that both sides felt. Examining the writings of the time, at the beginning of the Civil War both sides really were (and the Confederacy especially) gung-ho about the war.

Well, no, it is not impossible to come into that.
Yet the history of your country wasn’t and still is not my field of study. I got it on my desk when I was about 12/13 which wasn’t the right age to be tempted to do my own independent research on the matter.

As for my reason not to bring it up at all… I think you can possibly agree with me making the difference between civil -internal- conflict and international one.

The question in the OP refers to the present situation.
Hnece I posted my remarks on the admiration among a (in my view rather great) amount of the US population for the military and the support and even encouragement for waging war outside their nation.
I see one of the reasons for this in the fact that the conflict(s) are situated outside their nation. They thus only affect those US’ers who are directly involved=the soldiers who get wounded or die and their relatives.
There is no bombing, no bloodshed, no destruction, nothing of the devastation war brings to people directly inflicted on the US and its population. They simply have no experience with - and no recent memory of - the direct and cruel reality of war on daily life of citizens.
Salaam. A

[Ravenman]

@Aldebaran

I did and do see cheering for war, eagerness to enlist in the army and declaring every single soldier a hero in the USA.

I see – like the bloodthirsty American reservists who so look forward to murdering and maiming that they are willing to post slogans like this on their truck.

You have such great insight into the American mind. :rolleyes:

[Noone_Special]

To return briefly to the OP… War is like fire - every generation has to stick its hand in it once. Then they know what it’s like

Problem is, it seems that the next generation needs to prove to itself that war is hell, all over again

Been there, done that - too many times

Dani

[chappachula]

lets get back to the OP’s question:

The huge difference between then and now is Television. People were enthusiastic about war because they didn’t see it while eating breakfast.

But another big difference that nobody has mentioned yet is :our modern attitude to personal freedom–the freedom to do what you want with your life, and not what somebody else wants.

In 1967 when hippie leader Jerry Rubin said “do your own thing”–it was a radical new idea, and he was widely criticized. He meant " do whatever you personally want in life, not what society expects of you." Today, it seems obvious–but in 1967 it was a dangerous new idea. Then,young people were expected to live with their parents, boys to learn their father’s profession, girls to learn houskeeping, until they got married at age 21 or 22.
(it was illegal for a landlord to rent an apartment to an unmarried couple)

Up till about 1940, people werent free, (and didnt know they were missing anything).
Life was more difficult.
Most families were tight units, because everybody was dependent on each other to have the basic necessities of life–food and shelter. Grandparents lived with their children, everybody who had any income contributed to buying food for the whole family, or paying the rent. There simply wasnt enough spare money for,say, teenagers to buy clothes and or high-tech electronics (radio) and spend all day in the shopping malls(which didnt exist either, because back then shopping was done for necessities, not for fun).
Today, we take it as a fundamental right that an 18 year old can move to his own apartment, buy his own car, and freely choose his lifestyle.You dont owe anything or feel any dependence on family or society at large.
But until WWII, people felt an integral connection with their society–fierce loyalty to their family , their hometown, their country. This loyalty was not always by choice. ( it came partly from simple economics-you couldnt afford to ignore other people who you were dependant on)–But it also provided emotional strength and willingness to sacrifice for other people .So it was easier to be enthusiastic about war.

[Aldebaran]

Ravenman,

I’m sorry, but I fail to see any connection between what is behind your link and my posts.

I could give you pictures of for example that US soldier in Iraq who was pictured with on his helmet the word KILL and a bible pictured in the same frame (I don’t remember if it was in his hands or on his bag close to him).
Or I could provide for some pictures with US bombs attached to bombers and some nice bloodthirsty graffiti on them.
Or I could also also give you some famous quotes of US soldiers, including their name and rank. Like for example when asked: "why did you kill that woman? " --> answer: “I don’t know. Hey, the chick got in my way”.
And similar.

Yet I don’t do that because:

1. I don’t have any confidence at all in whatever is posted on the internet besides what is brought by official websites like for example of the VN. Even in these cases I take what I read with the needed caution.
   So I do not post links to so called “sources” on the internet which people around here use to name “cites” and take as a “source”.
2. I do not post links to “media” for the same reason.
3. I do not post links to pictures of the mutilated dead men, women and children in Iraq for the same reason (and also because those pictures are extremely graphic).
4. This is not a thread on the invasion and occupation of Iraq but on what the OP asked.
   Salaam. A

[RexDart]

@spanna

REXDART " and with very few civillian casualties."

I assume you mean compared to previous wars because “very few” doesn’t even begin to cover the thousands who have died

Yes, I think it was incredibly obvious that I meant in comparison to previous wars, since that was the entire gist of my post.

Compare the relatively few civillian casualties of a modern war with a campaign such as the Battle of Britain, with nightly bombings of London. No “smart” bombs there. Or when the tide turned, the bombings of Berlin.

I wouldn’t be surprised if more people die in a year on US highways than in what passes for a war these days. I don’t say that to justify any of the foreign entanglements we’ve dragged ourselves into over the past couple decades, but rather to point out the apparent irrelevance of death count in the attitude towards war. Death count goes down, opposition to war increases.

[RickJay]

@Ilsa_Lund

Respectfully, it is likely impossible for you to understand the kind of patriotic self righteousness that both sides felt. Examining the writings of the time, at the beginning of the Civil War both sides really were (and the Confederacy especially) gung-ho about the war.

That tends to be what comes through in the newspapers and such of the time. There was in fact a considerable percentage of the populace that either had no interest in war at all or were opposed to it. The cheers and waves at war’s beginning are often taken to mask fear and dread, not out of geniune enthusiasm. The lens of history, at least up until recently, has generally glorified war, magnifying support for war and ignoring opposition. I was amazed to see firsthand accounts of important Americans who wrote to Truman to express their displeasure about the atomic bombings. The impressions I’d always been given was that everyone was gung-ho about it.

I’ll pipe up as being one who questions if war has EVER been popular. Using U.S. history as an example, tens of thousands of people were terribly oppressed and forced out of the country for opposing that war, and more than a few people were simply murdered. The War of 1812 was as unpopular in its day as the Vietnam War was, if not more so. Civil War soldiers would desert half a dozen times and riots broke out in opposition to conscription.

[New_Iskander]

@ralph124c

So, will war ever be greeted with enthusiam again? Or, has the human race learned that it isn’t really much fun? :eek:

I think people have learned: enthusiasm for grand wars is at a very low ebb right now and will keep receding. At the same time, I don’t see necessity for wars disappearing, as there are still so many dangerous and ruthless troublemakers in this world.

OTOH, when devastation of Iraq is completed and our bloodthirsty president will declare that next mission is to invade Belgium and search for ‘Aldebaran’, I will be cheering ecstatically in front of my TV.

[XT]

I would gravely support a hunt by our bloodthristy maniac of a president in the unlawful search for Weapons of Mass Aldebaran…even unto the very bowels of Belgum. I feel that WMA represents a Clear and Present danger to ALL our sanity, and though I have had my differences (to say the least) with our lord and master, The Bush, I have to say that if he embarks on a vigorous and sustained effort to hunt down WMA and terminate with extreme prejudice (or at least with several gooy pies thrown at said villians face), I might just consider cutting him a bit of slack. I still won’t vote for him, mind you…but I’d definitely think better of the man.

Back on subject:

@RickJay

I’ll pipe up as being one who questions if war has EVER been popular.

Ya, it was in the past…very popular. Universally? No, not universally popular. And guess what? In spite of that stunningly relevant post by The Master, Aldebaran, it hasn’t always been exclusively US’ers who are fixated on this. I know, I know…its a shock. Maybe it…looks about quickly…a HUMAN thing, not just some perversity of USer mentality?? Naw.

However, with the majority of citizens, wars, especially foriegn wars of conquest, were ofter used to distract the populous from problems at home. I can remember reading accounts (no cites atm) in history books about the British people cheering at the start of the Napoleonic wars, or the beginning of WWI. Same with the French…ESPECIALLY at the start of the Napoleonic wars. Think of Rome and how popular foreign conquest was to the citizens. Germany and the Nazi rallies. There are lots of examples of the ebb and flow of war mania and the popularity of war, especially foreign wars.

I think that, if your ‘side’ is winning (like the British empire did for a fairly long time) of if you haven’t had a major one in a long time, but you have major national rivalry (think France and England), then the seeds for war being popular with the masses are there.

The current US ‘mania’ for war (if you could call it that…certainly Aldebaran does) stems from our defeat in Vietnam IMO, and the pitiful state of our military in the 70’s. That was the lowest ebb. Certainly no one would say that ‘war’ was popular in the US during that period, nor was military service. The military then rebuilt itself from the ground up, going from a conscript force to an all volunteer military (as well as other radical and fundamental changes I won’t get into). This culminated in the US’s stunning and one sided victory in GW I. Since then, Americans have percieved their military in different terms than they did during Vietnam (winning and winners are always popular, especially in a good cause). The pendulum swings. However, with our latest military adventure in Iraq, I am thinking that the pendulum might be starting to swing back the other way again. Certainly the jury is still out on this, but I think the perception of the military in the US is in the process of undergoeing another swing back. I’m hope it doesn’t reach the lows it did during Vietnam…time will tell on that.

I already answered the OP earlier, but I’ll just summarize my own position: Will people ever be enthusiastic about war again? Yes, they will. The pendulum will constantly swing back and forth for the various nations…there will be lows where folk look down on it, and highs where they don’t.

Probably not with the mania of the past, but yes…I think its a fundamental (and unfortunate) consequence of being human. We tend to glamorize things, especially war, and down play the grim and brutal side. Certainly if history is a guide, this baggage will remain with us as a species for some time to come.

-XT

[Ale]

@Noone Special

To return briefly to the OP… War is like fire - every generation has to stick its hand in it once. Then they know what it’s like

Problem is, it seems that the next generation needs to prove to itself that war is hell, all over again

Been there, done that - too many times

Dani

I beg to differ right there, you picture war as being an universal lust; I won´t even bother to link to the many countries/societies that haven´t shown any desire or inclination towards waging wars of any kind.
It´s not as if a society says “Ooops! we are at war again!”, it´s not fate or destiny, it´s a mind set and/or leadership that induce it; there´s a driving force behind armed conflicts.

[XT]

@Ale

I beg to differ right there, you picture war as being an universal lust; I won´t even bother to link to the many countries/societies that haven´t shown any desire or inclination towards waging wars of any kind.

War isn’t a universal ‘lust’…its a fairly universal condition of our species though. Societies or nations that did NOT have this ‘condition’ (i.e. had no ‘inclination towards waging wars of ANY kind’, my emphasis) basically failed and were forgotten.

Name a country or society Ale that has never had a war, been involved in a war, etc throughout its history. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single one. I’m sure SOMEWHERE out there in the murky history of our species there was SOME country or society that had no desire or inclination towards war…but I can’t for the life of me think of one. Probably with good reason, as since they had no desire or inclination towards waging wars of ANY kind, they were destroyed and forgotten.

To me, its a ridiculous assertion that flys in the face of what we are as a species. I’m fairly sure I know what you are getting at here, but I want to hear you say it before I make my own arguements on this. Want to trot out those cites? I’ll settle just for a name…name one.

-XT

[Ale]

Well, if it serves as an example, my country has not fought a war in the last century and half. I´m not talking about societies impolute of conflict; sometimes war juast knoks at the door, sometimes things get rotten from the inside.
What I´m talking about are societies/cultures without appeal for war or militarism; Costa Rica, for one, has no armies, nothing at all, they won´t start a war anytime soon and it was their choice. Most countries keep a military for defense purposes, and some for offensive and/or “active defense”. And a few have resigned from them:

Costa Rica
Dominica
Kiribati
Lichtenstein
Mauritius
Maldives
Monaco
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
San Marino
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Solomon Islands
Western Samoa

Those are no big countries, just before someone comes stating the obvious; but it stands that those countries have no desire or interest for war. If they stay or are destroyed and forgotten remains to be seen, but so far I haven´t heard of invading hordes landing on the beaches of Western Samoa.

[coffeecam]

@Ale

Well, if it serves as an example, my country has not fought a war in the last century and half. I´m not talking about societies impolute of conflict; sometimes war juast knoks at the door, sometimes things get rotten from the inside.
What I´m talking about are societies/cultures without appeal for war or militarism; Costa Rica, for one, has no armies, nothing at all, they won´t start a war anytime soon and it was their choice. Most countries keep a military for defense purposes, and some for offensive and/or “active defense”. And a few have resigned from them:

<SNIP THE LIST>

Those are no big countries, just before someone comes stating the obvious; but it stands that those countries have no desire or interest for war. If they stay or are destroyed and forgotten remains to be seen, but so far I haven´t heard of invading hordes landing on the beaches of Western Samoa.

The history and legends of Samoa record 133 major wars, starting from the battle of Anuilagi (Rebels of Pulotu and Papatea). The last was the Korean war fought abroad in the British and American armed forces. The second World War also drafted many of the Samoan youths of whom several died on the battlefield.

from HERE

Polynesian culture was not all that peaceful even before colonization blew the region to hell.

Costa Rica

Central America gained independence from Spain on September 15, 1821. The news reached Costa Rica a month after the event. The question of whether Costa Rica should join newly independent Mexico or join a new confederation of Central American states resulted in a bitter quarrel between the leaders of San Jose and their counterparts in Cartago and Heredia. A brief civil war in 1823 was won by San Jose and Costa Rica joined the confederation.

So costa rica was founded by San Jose imposing (militarily) it’s control over two other cities.

Dominica

The vanguard of the 1965 revolution, the perredeistas (members of the PRD) and other supporters of Bosch, called themselves Constitutionalists (a reference to their support for the 1963 constitution). The movement counted some junior military officers among its ranks. A combination of reformist military and aroused civilian combatants took to the streets on April 24, seized the National Palace, and installed Rafael Molina Ureña as provisional president. The revolution took on the dimensions of a civil war when conservative military forces, led by army general Elías Wessín y Wessín, struck back against the Constitutionalists on April 25. These conservative forces called themselves Loyalists. Despite tank assaults and bombing runs by Loyalist forces, however, the Constitutionalists held their positions in the capital; they appeared poised to branch out and to secure control of the entire country.

Says it all.

Kiribati

Kiribati
Tarawa and Christmas Island

Tarawa… never been any fight there… not withstanding to polynesian conflicts under Samoa.

@Ale

Lichtenstein
Mauritius
Maldives
Monaco
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
San Marino
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Solomon Islands

I think I’ve made my point adequately. There’s been fighting just about everywhere in human history, the point remains that however peaceful a country is now, 50 years ago, 150 years ago, or 500 years ago, that country wasn’t quite so unbeligerant.

Oh and Uruguay

A violent Marxist urban guerrilla movement, the Tupamaros, launched in the late 1960s, led Uruguay’s president to agree to military control of his administration in 1973. By yearend, the rebels had been crushed, but the military continued to expand its hold throughout the government. Civilian rule was not restored until 1985. Uruguay’s political and labor conditions are among the freest on the continent.

Not a war, just an urban insurrection that led to a coup that led to the most disappeared dissidents per capita ever. Probably qualifies as some kind of a war.

-C

[Ale]

@coffeecam

Not a war, just an urban insurrection that led to a coup that led to the most disappeared dissidents per capita ever. Probably qualifies as some kind of a war.

-C

I´d like to see the math behind that; my count is 34 dissapeared people in Uruguay during that period, on a 3 million or so population that is about 1.1 per 100.000 people; I WISH that would qualify as the best (worst?) proportion in the world.
For example, not far from here, just across a river, in Argentine 30.000 thousand were vanished.

Listing of all Uruguayans dissapeared

As for the rest of your post; I didn´t ever imply that those countries haven´t met war, but on average it´s been a very long time since they did; and more important those countries as they´re (by self determination) structured now are in no position to wage war at all.

[XT]

Well, coffeecam beat me to it. Personally I had my bet on Europe as your example (well, modern Europe, maybe Switzerland, Sweden, Belgum, etc).

The fact is, NO country in the world is free from war. Sure, they maybe be free of it right NOW, but historically? No chance. We just aren’t designed that way, and anyone who thinks so is failing to understand humanity in a fundamental way.

I’ll assume all the nations on your list have no current military…I’m basically too lazy to check. I know that they HAVE had militaries in the past, and have fought wars too…that goes without saying and its a ridiculous assertion to deny this. However, answer this Ale: HOW can these countries (assuming they don’t in fact have any military at all) do this? How can they not have a military yet ensure their soverenty? Got an answer in your head? Now…can ALL nations do the same thing as the nations on your list CURRENTLY do?

We’re really straying away from the OP at this point, and you don’t have to respond to this…but think it through. The answer of course is, they can afford to have no military (which is a huge economic benifit) because stronger nations ensure their soverenty…at a price. The price is that they fall within ‘spheres of influence’ of the great powers, and pretty much have to jump when some other nation says frog. Certainly even HAVING a military doesn’t make you immune to this, but having none makes you completely dependant on out side powers.

The other part of the answer is, no…not every nation can simply chose to have no military because of principal. Until you can arrange it that NO nation has a military of course…which is a catch 22 proposition if I ever heard one.

-XT

[XT]

@Ale

As for the rest of your post; I didn´t ever imply that those countries haven´t met war, but on average it´s been a very long time since they did; and more important those countries as they´re (by self determination) structured now are in no position to wage war at all.

BTW, this was the question I was asking so I’m puzzled why you responded if you knew that the nations on your list HAD gone to war in the past. Also…the US went through very long stretches of time when we were effectively neutral and had a very small military. We were certainly in no position to ‘wage war’ (unless the agressor came right to us) for most of the 19th century (excluding the Civil War era), and even the early 20th century. What does this prove? That during peace we pretty much dropped any funding for war and went back to making money…until we got kicked in the nuts one time too many and decided that we were going to wear some protection in future.

-XT

[Ale]

@xtisme

The fact is, NO country in the world is free from war. Sure, they maybe be free of it right NOW, but historically? No chance. We just aren’t designed that way, and anyone who thinks so is failing to understand humanity in a fundamental way.

I´ll say it again ´cause it´s not stiking, I.Never.Said.That, I never said that any country has a war-free past.
Second, are you saying that we are “designed” for war, that´s a natural state, a fate of some sort, I´m not buying it without evidence.

@xtisme

I’ll assume all the nations on your list have no current military…I’m basically too lazy to check. I know that they HAVE had militaries in the past, and have fought wars too…that goes without saying and its a ridiculous assertion to deny this.

Read above, I hope this time it gets through, I didn´t say such nonsense.

@xtisme

However, answer this Ale: HOW can these countries (assuming they don’t in fact have any military at all) do this? How can they not have a military yet ensure their soverenty? Got an answer in your head? Now…can ALL nations do the same thing as the nations on your list CURRENTLY do?

Point 1, well, as I said, those countries are doing fine wihout a military, I think the most probable cause for their survaival is that noone gives a shit about them, really, what is the point of invading St. Kitts and Nevis?, any benefit seems to outweight the trouble. Besides, I don´t picture the world community as a bunch of bloodthirsty buccaneers, jumping into invasion mode whenever the opportunity arises. YMMV of course.

@xtisme

We’re really straying away from the OP at this point, and you don’t have to respond to this…but think it through. The answer of course is, they can afford to have no military (which is a huge economic benifit)

I think your math is not very good neither…

@xtisme

because stronger nations ensure their soverenty…at a price. The price is that they fall within ‘spheres of influence’ of the great powers, and pretty much have to jump when some other nation says frog.

Cite? You may think so, I can suspect so; but I don´t have any evidence that says so. Do you?

@xtisme

Certainly even HAVING a military doesn’t make you immune to this, but having none makes you completely dependant on out side powers.

Why?

@xtisme

The other part of the answer is, no…not every nation can simply chose to have no military because of principal.

I whole heartly agree, South Korea disbanding the ranks would be more than foolish, for example.

@xtisme

Until you can arrange it that NO nation has a military of course…which is a catch 22 proposition if I ever heard one.

Indeed, more´s the merit of those who choose peace.

[Noone_Special]

@RexDart

I wouldn’t be surprised if more people die in a year on US highways than in what passes for a war these days. I don’t say that to justify any of the foreign entanglements we’ve dragged ourselves into over the past couple decades, but rather to point out the apparent irrelevance of death count in the attitude towards war. Death count goes down, opposition to war increases.

As a point of fact (I’ll dig up the cites if anyone insists), more Israelis have died in traffic accidents than in Wars and Terrorism put together (if you want to separate them to begin with, which I’m not sure is right).
Yet everyone seems to accept the death toll of traffic accidents as something we must live with…
Point? What people are willing to die for is a cultural/societal question. Right now most of us seem to be more prepared to die in order to get to work in our own car than in order to fight for an ideology… I’m not even sure this is a Bad Thing - but it does seem to be the current way of thinking in the so-called “Western” world.

Dani

[Aldebaran]

@New Iskander

OTOH, when devastation of Iraq is completed and our bloodthirsty president will declare that next mission is to invade Belgium and search for ‘Aldebaran’, I will be cheering ecstatically in front of my TV.

I make of your post that you rejoice fanatically whenever the US army kills an innocent Iraqi man, woman or child and that you dream to take part in the butchery.
Question:
Why aren’t you part of it? Why didn’t you go over there yourself to kill some innocents and launch some rockets to help destroy and devastate Iraq?
Are you afraid some lost bullet might return to you and hit you in the head? (which obviously can’t do much damage to your knocked-out brain anyway. Maybe it even provokes it to wake up)

Since you seem to be too cowardly to personally take part in any of the bloodthirsty actions you seem to promote:
You are most welcome to follow on your TV a US search for me in Belgium, which I shall cheer ecstatically following the reports on their non-progress. Maybe in a few years time you and those who “search for me” eventually have learned that Aldebaran doesn’t live in Belgium at all, but that is a stretch since it involves reasoning.

Since long it is no surprise to me anymore that US’ers have no clue what or who they are searching and where they have to search but nevertheless it is most of the time amusing to watch their struggle.
Hence it is also most amusing to watch the struggle of the brainless US government to uphold their claim they “needed” to invade occupy and devastate a sovereign nation - murdering thousands of people - because they “knew” Hussein had WMD that formed a “direct threat” to the USA.

I would be flat of laughter if I didn’t had the pictures of murdered Iraqi people, including little children with their heads blown to pieces and their brains scattered on the floor of their home, in my memory.

You however are welcome to cheer ecstatically the thought alone on that butchery and at the same time morn that it was - and is - done in your complete absence on the scene of action.
In case you by some miracle overcome your reluctance to go over there, would you be so kind to inform me about your identity hidden behind your cyberspace presence? I shall with pleasure make the effort to have your heroism covered for the sake of US History writing and in one stroke provide your family of proof of your heroic contribution.
Salaam. A

[JRDelirious]

coffeecam, in your post you confused Dominica with the Dominican Republic, an entirely different nation.