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All wars are destructive. Wars seldom deliver the results anyone wants. In a war, winners and losers, both lose out. Women (widows), children and elderly loose out more than soldiers who die or leaders who loose.
The dead are dead and care no more for earthly pleasures.
Leaders can afford to lose, learn from their mistakes, regroup and live
to fight another day.
But the family of the dead soldiers have only memories to live with -
forever.
Rama won his war over Ravana only to lose Sita and his twins.
Kauravas lost the war so badly, not a single one of them survived to support
their elderly parents.
Pandavas won the war yet lost everyone they might have wanted to enjoy the
empire with – ie sons, relatives, friends and obedient servants.
Gandhiji won independence for India, but as India was carved out into 3
nations. Gandhiji’s victory over the British turned out to be just as
hollow as that of the original Satyagrahi, Dharm-avatar,
Yudhisthir !!
British won World War II but as a result, their precious empire collapsed around
them.
Americans won Iraq and Afghanistan wars only to see their economy nose dive.
Even personal wars are counter productive.
When we fight with someone we claim to “love”, we might fight for the “right
reasons” we only end up alienating our love-ones.
Divorces are acrimonious and destroy relationships, consume time and drain our
bank balance.
Wars, fights, arguments – they all destroy our peace of mind and ruin us in more ways than one.
Victors and victims - both loose out in a war. Victory is as hollow as the pointlessness of admiting you lost out. Victims and victors often try to forget the horrors of war and block out its excesses. History however preserves some inkling of that. Often, evidence of these horrors are left for us to discover them at a later date.
The Atomic Age is the pinnacle period where war becomes a
moot point.
The age of mutual self destruction is the result as both sides arm up for the
BIG WAR.
Why is that the pinnacle?
Because there are no winners.
Some people can survive. But they would have to live under the earth for 60-80 years.
Is survival a victory then?
War is most always meant for limited gains.
War cannot be contained though.
What one side might consider limited gains the other side may over time rebuild
and when their chance comes up they can seek retribution.
So even in an Atomic war, there is limited room for complete success and there
is always a chance for continued retribution.
Mankind does allow for one type of war to be successful.
Does mankind have the wisdom to take this type of war off the table?
The only war that appears to work is annihilation.
It appears that there is one kind of war that can succeed.
A war of annihilation can succeed and has repeated throughout human history.
Take Hitler and the Jewish and minorities war.
Success in even that appears to be limited.
Once the Jews were all killed and the gypsies and anyone else Hitler wanted dead
the killing might have stopped. Could he have annihilated all of those people
and still kept his government intact? History suggests that the allies
ignored the annihilation.
Pol Pot killed a huge percentage of his countrymen and the
world hardly noticed.
The aborigines in Australia were nearly annihilated in Australia.
The American Indians have nearly been annihilated in the United States.
Does that kind of war leave scars?
It appears after a generation or two people’s memories fade.
Even now in the United States there are lots of people that do not believe that
the holocaust ever happened.
Most people think that the American Indians moved as part of their nomadic
history.
The United States is highly educated.vvIf the United States could be this
ignorant after a few generations what is the cost of annihilation or a
holocaust? Granted when the horror is happening the emotional loss is
great.
Are the emotions so great that they are forgotten after a few
generations?
As is often repeated in the Mahabharata and other texts emotions are temporary.
You have to dehumanise your enemy to fight them.
Enemy is always uncivilised, ugly, stupid, unhygienic, without morals, scruples
and godless.
Enemy is unjust, without mercy etc etc.
Dehumanising the enemy dehumanises us.
The victors write the history books.
Horrors are diluted.
Memories fade.
People force out of their memories the ugliness.
These thoughts are ugly ones I understand.
In the main, I feel all wars do is to "destroy things. They create
nothing.
On a personal level hating someone doesn't work. It
is a war of sorts, a subtle war.
Avoiding people you don't like works. Avoidance over time can become acceptance.
Hate only fuels hate.
Hate becomes self hate.
Avoiding someone might create a hole in your personality. But, atleast you
will not poison yourself with self hate.