The Cost of War
Last month I had a prolonged debate with an anonymous commenter. He wrote:
"I don’t think world peace wouldn’t be great, just that it is completely unrealistic.
But there you go again with the, “killing people” garbage. In your mind, Bush and congress gave the OK to go to Iraq, we strapped a bunch of bombs to some jets and went over there and just started letting loose on every Iraqi town we could find. Am I close? I don’t know if you just don’t do any reading about what we are doing and have done over there, or if this is another symptom of getting your news from Comedy Central. "
and
"By the way, did you know more people were murdered in Chicago last summer than died in the Iraq war last summer? "
Here's my response:
4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects
Landmines are cheap to make, easy to bury, and difficult to find and neutralize. An estimated 15,000 people are killed and injured each year by forgotten landmines. 90% of them are civilians.
Estimates of Iraqi deaths range from 100,000 to 1,000,000. These are everyday Iraqis not terrorists or evil-doers.
Seventy percent of [Iraqi] children are suffering from trauma-related symptoms
Wars don't take place between soldiers on battlefields. They take place on streets, in neighborhoods, and in houses, where normal people live, work, and raise their families.
World peace is unrealistic. But we could at least cease to war with other countries. We could cut war spending. We could stop mass producing weapons for profit.
The cost of war is not measured in dollars, but in lives. And the full tally will be understood and accounted for before the judgment bar of God.
"Blessed are the apeacemakers: for they shall be called the bchildren of God." —Jesus
"I don’t think world peace wouldn’t be great, just that it is completely unrealistic.
But there you go again with the, “killing people” garbage. In your mind, Bush and congress gave the OK to go to Iraq, we strapped a bunch of bombs to some jets and went over there and just started letting loose on every Iraqi town we could find. Am I close? I don’t know if you just don’t do any reading about what we are doing and have done over there, or if this is another symptom of getting your news from Comedy Central. "
and
"By the way, did you know more people were murdered in Chicago last summer than died in the Iraq war last summer? "
Here's my response:
4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects
Landmines are cheap to make, easy to bury, and difficult to find and neutralize. An estimated 15,000 people are killed and injured each year by forgotten landmines. 90% of them are civilians.
Estimates of Iraqi deaths range from 100,000 to 1,000,000. These are everyday Iraqis not terrorists or evil-doers.
Seventy percent of [Iraqi] children are suffering from trauma-related symptomsWars don't take place between soldiers on battlefields. They take place on streets, in neighborhoods, and in houses, where normal people live, work, and raise their families.
World peace is unrealistic. But we could at least cease to war with other countries. We could cut war spending. We could stop mass producing weapons for profit.
The cost of war is not measured in dollars, but in lives. And the full tally will be understood and accounted for before the judgment bar of God."Blessed are the apeacemakers: for they shall be called the bchildren of God." —Jesus
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." —Abraham Lincoln
ReplyDeleteAre you conceding that Obama is destroying us from the inside?
Enjoy your idealistic pity party.
PS: I'm a girl.
Like I've said before I go back and forth. I think in some cases it is a necessary evil. But thank you for bringing the humanity back into it.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing I don't get, Miss Anonymous. Why sidestep the actual argument in question yet again for the sake of being right? To me, that sort of attitude (I am right at all costs) seems like the main problem in politics today.
ReplyDeleteCan we not at least consider together that our warmongering attitude is often destructive—not only to other people's lives and bodies, but to ourselves and to our nation's stability?
The problem is not a person, not a gun, not a bomb, but a point of view. Obama is not destroying us from the inside. We are. We all are. ALL of us. Every time we refuse to look at an issue's complexity, or at least acknowledge the import of the consequences that some of our nation's decisions have led to (good or bad).
My favorite writer once wrote, "It is a reduction of our humanity to hide from pain, our own or others." Ignoring that pain for the sake of being right seems like hiding to me. You impress me as a person with strong opinions, which I admire and appreciate. But why turn condescending and adversarial when others address that pain—and therefore humanity—just for the sake of those opinions?
Kathy, I love how you come in and criticize me for not considering the damage we do in war while Chris is doing the same thing from the other side.
ReplyDeleteSo don't act like I'm not looking at the complexities of war when Chris's post is a bunch of terrible pictures to try to get people to say, "Oh yeah, that really is bad, let's not look at the reasons behind why we are doing that because I'd rather not see sad children."
Give me a break.
Wait, I don’t get the connection. I can’t say you ignore war’s complexities because of someone else’s post?
ReplyDeleteYou can say whatever you want.
ReplyDeleteBut pretending like Chris provided a meaningful post displaying the complexities of war by posting pictures of deformed children is dishonest, at best.
Perhaps you could brush up on the parable of the beam and the mote.
What the hell? I am so confused. Why does Miss Anonymous support killing children? Eggs gotta be broken for an omelet right? Well you can keep your omelet, I'm having toast.
ReplyDeleteGet it? Some people don't think it's okay to MURDER in the name of capitalism.
So deformed children mean nothing now... Wow.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Miss Anonymous has yet to reveal the good that is coming from the violence she supports. Please, point by point- I'll read it.
ReplyDeleteNicholas,
ReplyDeleteAt least I can take comfort in the fact that Chris and Kathy aren't the only ones on this blog who read what they want to read and twist words to suit their agenda.
I'll educate you on reasons we go to war as soon as Chris makes a post filled with pictures of children and innocent people who were killed or deformed by Saddam (or Hitler or Kim Jong Il).
Anon. Saddam's sins don't excuse our own.
ReplyDeleteAnd it would be funny if they did, because he massacred people as our ally, with weapons we gave him.
And for that, we had him killed.
And the problem isn't that we go to war to defend our country. But we go to war for profit.
ReplyDeleteSome men profit from war. If a war were necessary, all should sacrifice, and all should suffer, for its cause.
But those who sell war, will of course tell you that they do it for liberty, justice, democracy, and to defeat terrorism.
It is easier to sell in that package.
So if I was walking down the street and saw a person getting attacked, I should sit back and do nothing because 1. It's not my business and 2. Attacking someone is not the answer to someone else being attacked.
ReplyDeleteI won't deny that some people profit from war, and that's unfortunate. But considering I don't work for Halliburton, it has nothing to do with my reasoning.
The parable of walking down the street and witnessing an attack applies to no U.S. wars within the last 50 years that I can think of.
ReplyDeleteIn agreement with your parable, wars should be fought locally. Then those involved would be more likely to know why they are fighting, and what for.
For example, the insurgents in Iraq, who witness their friends and families being killed by U.S. soldiers, are justified to attack us according to your parable.
But we, we mass produce wars for profit, ship them overseas, and invent excuses for them as an after thought.
And you may not work for Halliburton, but your tax money, and your vote, supports them.
ReplyDeleteWe will not be held blameless, even if we think ourselves so.
In other words, we should have let the Iraqi people suffer. Your interpretation of my parable only works if we wait until the victim and/or the attacker cross over to our side of the street before we help the victim.
ReplyDeleteAs I already said, it's unfortunate that somebody is profiting from the war, but it still has nothing to do with my point of view. And if you'd like to go that route, your vote and tax money is going towards overseas abortions and corrupt politicians, CEOs and thugs.
By the way, your responses to me are completely different ever since you found out I am a girl.
ReplyDeleteNot that I’m surprised, liberals tend to think women and minorities are too stupid to understand what the upper-middle class white men are talking about. I guess that’s why we need you guys to give us jobs and scholarships that we don’t really deserve, right?
You were more interesting to talk to when you thought I had a penis.
The question isn't whether or not we should let the Iraqi people suffer. First of all, that is not the reason we went there. Secondly, it's a false dilemma, because it presupposes that the only solution to ending their suffering would be through war.
ReplyDeleteIf war were the best way to alleviate suffering, Christ would have ridden into Rome, sword brandished, to emancipate the Jews.
I believe that God is smarter than us all, and that war is a failure of imagination. We need to discover better means of influence, rather than justify our blasphemy— that we, as well as God, may choose who will live and who will die.
And on your lack of a penis: perhaps you have confused liberal dickishness with chivalry, though I had not consciously practiced either. And if you knew my mother, or my wife, you would know that I could not believe in chauvinism.
Lastly, I'm not liberal. I'm libertarian. I just voted for Democrats this time around because there was no conservative Republican offering, aside from Ron Paul, who dropped out of the race.
Yeah, you're right. We should just have our leaders chat with evil dictators. Ask them nicely to stop. That ought to do it!
ReplyDeleteWhy do liberals get so offended when they get called liberal? Based on your blog, you are basically the anti-libertarian. Maybe you should actually go research what a true libertarian is before you pretend to subscribe to libertarian dogma.
I better get back to my knitting and standing in the kitchen barefoot and pregnant.
Matthew 13:15
ReplyDeleteWho can hear it? 'Tis a strange doctrine. Even foolish.
3 Nephi 2:2
How quick you are to judge, as if you knew my heart.
And there is no shame in knitting, nor cooking. And the bearing of children is the greatest of privileges, one that is oft prayed for.
How terrible that a woman should feel she need debase the noble work of others (and mothers) in order to gain dignity.
Which part of my statement was debasing the work of others? I am a mother, I have cooked and I have knitted.
ReplyDeleteI cannot be responsible for how you interpret my words, and the way you interpreted them was presumptuous and misogynistic.
If you've stopped giving meaningful answers to my posts because of some twisted form of chivalry then I guess our discourse ends here. But I think you have ulterior reasons.