" War, what is it good for? "....Edwin Starr.

[Kyuuketsuki]

The essential difference is that nowadays war is for money and power, and lied about. Hitler really existed, Bin Laden and Hussein were presented as dangerous when they were not (to us). The main difference is the way war is fought, the 'why' war is fought. And in that difference, I see it as much easier to understand the wrongness of war by looking at the new ones. We could argue the old ones, but I am not as confidant of my ability to make it make sense. Although, I am everything you think of me, and then some.

War has ALWAYS been about money and power, the difference today is the nature of media ... not only do we get the images nearly immediately, we also get the propaganda nearly immediately and as anyone knows the first casualty of war is truth.

Thank you yet again for being so charming and enlightening.

Thank you again for being such a [expletive deleted]

Kyu

[bozo]

Kyu, let me take you back to 1914-18 and imagine the 24 hour media you talk about, bringing war and propoganda to our screens. I suggest it would have portrayed our plucky volunteers going off to give Harry Hun a jolly good thrashing....probably until The Somme in 1916, followed by Pashendale, Ypres, Verdun etc. etc. The conscript troops who arrived after 1916 were vastly different to the ones who knew the score and just wished the war would end..quickly.
( on both sides ). As did the weary populations of Germany and Britain.
War doesn't change....it's about killing, done by the pawns in the game at the behest of politicians.
My old mate Shelley had something to say on it in Queen Mab:-

" War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,
The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade "

Some things never change.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Kyu, let me take you back to 1914-18 and imagine the 24 hour media you talk about, bringing war and propoganda to our screens. I suggest it would have portrayed our plucky volunteers going off to give Harry Hun a jolly good thrashing....probably until The Somme in 1916, followed by Pashendale, Ypres, Verdun etc. etc. The conscript troops who arrived after 1916 were vastly different to the ones who knew the score and just wished the war would end..quickly.

I'd suggest that if we had the media now in 1914 we'd get much the same as we get now ... media (along with an increasing emphasis on "rights", "liberalisation" and greater education) is what has changed us, made us more aware.

War doesn't change....it's about killing, done by the pawns in the game at the behest of politicians.

Did I say it had changed? What I was attacking was Pippy's view that wars can be [objectively] declared just or unjust (they can't for reasons already given) and that somehow war is unjust today (more recent history) a criticism that somehow doesn't apply to more ancient wars.

Kyu