A culture that glorifies war.....

[marmar]

I was just scrolling through on-screen program guide on cable, looking for something to watch, and I ran across the Military Channel - all war, all the time. Its lineup for tonight includes programs about British bombers from WWII to the present, weapons used by the U.S. in the invasion of Iraq, bombs this, missles that, etc etc.
So I watched for a while. None of these programs discussed the horrors of war. The weapons, the bombing runs, the decimation of the "enemy" are all celebrated. And it's not just the Military Channel - many of the documentary channels show similar programming.
And of course, the defeat of Hitler in WWII was great. But there was something very dark about listening to a narrarator excitedly describe how German soldiers were blown to bits in the various battles. It's like people "get high" on war and so-called victories. It was the same in the Iraq war programs: a breathlessly excited description of how advanced U.S. weaponry wiped Saddam's army off the face of the earth.
Where is the Peace Channel on cable? Where's the excited commentator describing the exploits of Gandhi, Mandela or Martin Luther King 24/7?
Maybe war is just ingrained in the human psyche, but it's also well-celebrated in the mass media. But I, for one, am sick of it. My heroes are the Howard Zinns and Martin Luther Kings of the world, not the Norman Schwarzkopfs and Colin Powells.
Smedley Butler was right: War is a racket.

[StClone]

1. Future Weapons!

Desensitized to remote wars where victims are vaporized is so hip that it's got it's own show. High Tech and quick death yippee!

[itsmesgd]

2. that crazy ex-seal gets moist talking about new guns that can kill a lot of people real fast

[AnnInLa]

3. Please read this post by Digby...."Might Makes Right"

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html#1055216383903338644#1055216383903338644

I see this as being two different phenomena. The first is the unreconstructed cold warriors who are both rewriting history and adhering to their long standing hysterical position that the sky is always falling and the only thing to do is fight, invade, bomb or some other form of violence. They have never seen any use in diplomacy, international law, sophisticated containment strategies or anything else that requires finesse and subtlety. It's always been about might makes right with these people. They were frustrated to no end by anyone who tried something different and that includes St. Ronnie who was roundly denounced for taking yes for an answer when the Soviets saw the light.

snip

Then 9/11 happens when they are in charge and they have a chance to do it the way they always wanted to --- by roaring and flailing about like a wounded Giant under the ridiculous assumption that this will scare the enemy so much he will just give up. They are facing this complicated threat with all the sophistication of early man trying to scare off a big predator.

The doughy pantload generation of wingnuts, on the other hand, thinks it's some sort of game and they are the star players. They yearned to be "part" of something momentous --- but from a distance, like you are when you are watching movies about war and heroism and identify with the main characters. No need to give up your Milk Duds just to enjoy a good bloodbath. They are writing an exciting plotline that has Islamic terrorism somehow so uniquely dangerous that it has surpassed WWII and the cold war and is more like something out of science fiction: "Star Wars" or "War of the Worlds." To these people, naitonal security is cheap pulp fiction.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html#1055216383903338644#1055216383903338644

[marmar]

5. That's a great post....It makes all the sense in the world.

:think:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Blessed are the peacemakers..... check out this shot of

Dresden, targetting civilians aparrently is ok when the need arises.

Well looky here.... someone I usually refuse to listen to for more that a few seconds.... Christopher Hitchens


http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/issuesideas/story.html?id=d8df4fed-9a03-4d0b-90f7-57a9192e8a79
>>Some say that Dresden was not really a military target and that it was obliterated mainly in order to impress Stalin, while others argue that Dresden was indeed a hub city for Hitler's armies.

This leaves us with a somewhat arid and suspect antithesis: Were these bombings war crimes, and if so, were they justified on the grounds that they shortened the duration of the criminal war itself?

Anthony Grayling, a very deft and literate English moral philosopher, now seeks to redistribute the middle of this latent syllogism in his new book, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the World War II Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan. He argues that "area bombing" was not really intended to shorten the war, and did not do so. And he further asserts that the policy was an illegal and immoral one by the standards that the Allies had announced at the onset of hostilities. Some of what he says is unarguable.<<

[marmar]

6. That picture of Dresden is horrific....

I visited one of the historical museums in Berlin a couple of years ago and saw pictures of the area around Brandenburg Gate after the WWII bombings. Nothing good comes of war.