I've been reading some of your other comments on this subject and as proactively inflammatory as they tend to be, you are right in this much: war IS wrong. Even mainland Europe said so before WW2, excepting Germany. They were still cleaning up after WW1. But why do you seem to attack those who (eventually) reacted and responded to that belligerence, who tried to keep neutral until it was no longer possible? You seem to have no words against the aggressors. Would you rather that we all stood aside and let Hitler have that "free hand" he demanded between 1938 and 1945? Hitler wanted war, prayed for it, tested his neighbors for it; he was snagging up neighboring countries by force, slaughtering thousands (which would turn to millions), killing not only soldiers but committing genocides of Romanians, Czechs, Poles, the Russians and more...with a special emphasis on Jews. And he would've
succeeded. I have Dutch Jew relatives who both survived and died in concentration and extermination camps. It was easy for a fanatical German people to look upon their neighbors as
untermenschen and attack them without conscience; they believed themselves ethically, ethnically, morally and genetically superior. I guess it helped them sleep at night.
On the matter of genocides, I have, in my own lifetime, seen a genocide of nearly one million Rwandan Tutsi men, women, children and babies...hacked by machete-wielding Rwandan Hutus. This was not spur-of-the-moment...this was well-foreplanned. This occurred in the summer months of 1994...and absolutely
NOBODY of power or influence ran interference against it. And that included President Clinton.
War
is wrong...but to do nothing against the war-crazed is
far, far worse.I don't really enjoy rhetoric; in fact, I directly oppose it. So here I am. I am one of the lucky few who was born in an era whereas between 18-26 years later we'd not be involved in another major conflict involving a draft and death. I am that lucky. I trained in the US Army in early '88 for 51 days before several other new recruits and myself were suddenly released and sent home due to the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Emergency Act (to balance the federal budget); had I not been sent home, my MOS would've easily sent me to Kuwait for Desert Shield/Desert Storm. That's just how it would've went. But apart from that, those 51 days of training gave me a perspective of those who served and continue to serve. I developed a healthy respect for the foot-soldier, who has no choice or latitude and cannot pick or choose; he does...and perhaps dies. He doesn't pray for war, but he
does prepare for it. In earnest. A far cry from the NSDAP Deutschen Wehrmacht, the soldiers of which were sworn to blind obedience to their Führer as a god, in addition to national duty. Fanaticism. At least other soldiers had the right to conscientiously object. Very few did.
I wish you had a fairer, more-balanced perspective on the matter. You have your right to an opinion, but my opinion of your opinions is that they tend to be inflammatory, disrespectful, hit-and-run reckless. This one only quotes a Wikipedia page to vaguely support it and cites nothing else: no deeper personal insight, no other facts, nothing. Just sculpted all-or-nothing words to shame. And personally, I think I've wasted enough words in response to your post. Your words sure make it difficult to respect you.