This is a provocative article; read at your own discretion.
John F. Kennedy said that war would exist until that distant day when the individuals who claim the right to refuse to perform military service, on the grounds of freedom of thought or conscience, enjoy the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does. Wars seem to be the norm on this planet, but why exactly do we continue to fight them, who do we fight for and what idea of a country are we fighting to protect?
Who do we fight for? Do we die for the people of our nation? Most states today are multinational – have we become more allegiant to sovereign states than nations? Why fight for a state, why fight to protect your country? Face it, it's not great. There is poverty, homelessness, extreme differences between rich and poor… You've probably never stopped to ask a homeless person in your city how he feels so do you actually care?
above: A relevant segment from a Fox News debate.
Can you imagine dying to protect artificial borders which over the years have separated nations and families? Would you die to protect your country? Would you be willing to be paid to kill, in another country, so that one day big firms may establish oil production stations in that country? Why are all the real men and women of our countries fighting in foreign grounds while the described as hippie-nerds are back here running charity shops or a simple bike shop?
What reason do we have to keep on fighting? The only logic to war is to be stronger than your enemy in case he wants to attack you, which is a stupid logic seeing as it makes your enemy adopt the same logic – an eternal arms race. We don't bring peace and freedom of opportunity by fighting wars. We may need a military and we may need soldiers to defend our borders but when it comes to "defending the interests of our country" that's no longer defending anything, that's sugar-coating "attacking other countries to benefit ours" and when they say ours they mean the few that will exploit the results. Wars were never fought for the people, they were fought for the people who order them – for thousands of years wars are fought by soldiers not by kings. Would you die for your country? You can't, you can only die for the interests of someone within.
PreviousIgnorance in the Media Deriving directly from the ignorance within us.