(Warning: this post discusses war, violence, and the Holocaust)
Since it's Remembrance Sunday here in the UK, I think it's time we all admitted something: war is failure.
Yes, even the conflicts we 'win.'
Yes, even the conflicts that people had to get involved in.
Yes, even World War 2.
War is a failure of humanity. A failure of democracy. A failure of progress.
War fails members of the military, civilians, and whole nations.
Every life lost is a failure to prevent tragedy, to protect people, and to make a better world.
We should never get to the point where two or more sides engage in violence, attacks, and combat.
The fact that we do reach that point indicates some form of failure, in and of itself.
'But what about World War 2?'
Yes, we definitely needed to fight Hitler and the Nazis. No arguments.
But it was still a failure - we failed to step in before things got so horrendously bad.
We failed to notice the signs of what was happening, we failed to publicly and inarguably denounce the Nazis on the world stage before they got to the point they did.
We failed to step in and do something about the Spanish Civil War, and we failed by letting fascists govern Spain simply because we as a society somehow feared Communism more. (Which, FYI: makes no sense.)
It was a failure of democracy to allow Hitler to get to power, it was a moral failure on the part of the people who put him there, it was a failure of humanity that the Holocaust could ever conceivably happen at all.
War is failure, because we should never let it get to the point where it happens at all.
I agree 100%. Even the most worthy of wars, if there's such a thing, mean that we didn't act in a way that we could have avoided it. It was strange this year to celebrate the first Veteran's Day in the US without a war in 20 years.
ReplyDeleteThere are definitely points where we had to step in (like I said, WW2,) - I think it's important to look at the broader historical context of conflicts (like the West's interference in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 and what that may or may not have caused.)
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