Monday, November 14, 2005
Wars, Combatants and Non-Combatants
The Human Price
*
Jonathan Darman's article in Newsweek, "The Wages of War" is mostly about veterans of wars past. He mentioned the current war--in Iraq--in passing but experiences of veterans in other wars could not have been much different. It is interesting that majority of returning veterans do not take part in speaking out against war although they many of them "quietly hate war". "If history is a guide, only a few of these new veterans will join antiwar movements; most will proudly support their country in any future entanglements it may face. But many of those returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will doubtless join a tradition of brave veterans who quietly hate war."
*****
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed—those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone—it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
—Dwight Eisenhower, Speech (1953)
Soldiers and their feelings about Iraq is a subject that I often think about. I would have strongly discouraged my children from taking part in this war and I have low opinion of those who took us to Iraq, especially the ones who avoided taking part in battle (Vietnam war). Among them: G.W. Bush, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld.
Jonathan Darman's article in Newsweek, "The Wages of War" is mostly about veterans of wars past. He mentioned the current war--in Iraq--in passing but experiences of veterans in other wars could not have been much different. It is interesting that majority of returning veterans do not take part in speaking out against war although they many of them "quietly hate war". "If history is a guide, only a few of these new veterans will join antiwar movements; most will proudly support their country in any future entanglements it may face. But many of those returning from Afghanistan and Iraq will doubtless join a tradition of brave veterans who quietly hate war."
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed—those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending its money alone—it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
—Dwight Eisenhower, Speech (1953)
