Two questions,
If war is natural, why are there hundreds of suicides amongst our military returning from the battle field?
Do you think our military really fights for the interest of its citizens or the corporate interest that gain monetary profit from war?
Consider this source and this source when answering the questions.
12 comments:
First question - just because war is "natural" doesn't mean it isn't traumatic.
Second question - neither (or to put it more correctly, either reason is too simplistic).
Digging deeper, the first question is also too simplistic. According to NPR, "While some of the deaths can be linked to the stresses of being deployed in a war zone, a third or more of those who killed themselves were never deployed." A fairly high proportion of those deployed into a war zone never see combat (US military has a pretty high tail-to-teeth ratio), though it's not danger-free and is still stressful. Since the wars have been winding down (especially Iraq, which was the bigger of the two), I have to wonder just how much of it's due to failed relationships/marriages, financial problems, and future employment concerns in a economy that's not exactly zipping along, to say the least.
Oh, and war IS natural. Just ask Miss Goodall's chimps, or look at the causes of death in ancient archaeological sites. That's a remarkably constant 30-35% of male skeletons showing signs of violent death caused by other humans. Of course, one just has to look at how many sites were chosen for defensive capability, and/or were fortified in some manner. That doesn't mean that war is good, but it does mean you'd best be good at war. Historically, not being good at war has often meant death for adult males, enslavement of women and children, and the extinction of your culture.
“War" happens to be a learned behavior within a given society. It is not something that is genetic or natural. War amongst the animal kingdom is far different than the idea of it in America or amongst the human species. We have become so disconnected with our natural environment that the idea of fighting for something because our very survival depends on it is not the reason we go to war. Humans are far more mentally and physically healthy if they are working in harmony. This idea alone could point to high suicide rates because we are fighting against our own natural instincts. When people are fighting for something that has no real value to life it will only cause harm. We also have to look at who we send to fight on the front lines. The socioeconomic class in which they come from is poor, therefor the odds of them having certain skills that help them deal with mental illness is very low. We also have to take in account the large numbers of innocent life killed in war and the toll it takes on the mind. War is scripted and bundled in to a packed to sell to the citizens of this country to benefit those who are set to gain monetary wealth from war. Not only do corporations such as Halliburton make money from the fighting, they make money on the reconstruction of the country they just had a hand in destroying. This will also lead to higher rates of suicide and mental illness because your fighting a fictional enemy.
Humans are far more mentally and physically healthy if they are working in harmony.
This is true. The problem is that this is not the default state of man and never had been.
The socioeconomic class in which they come from is poor, therefor the odds of them having certain skills that help them deal with mental illness is very low.
What nonsense. What skills do you need to deal with mental illness? Money?!
This will also lead to higher rates of suicide and mental illness because your fighting a fictional enemy.
Fictional? Really? Well, guess they should have just put the guns away and nobody would be shooting back. Troops in both theaters must have been shooting at mirages and burning ammo to make it look real. Fictional is a better term for your understanding of 'War'. About the only thing you got right is that some people profit from war and some lose everything.
It is not something that is genetic or natural.
So social organization isn't natural? What it comes from the super-natural?
I'm responding becasue this is a decent debate-
1- Social behavior is learned in a given environment from which the individual comes from that does not make it genetic or natural. So for thousands of years humans had to work in harmony with their given social network and the planet just to survive. We did not have the energy or time to fight each other because we were far to busy working to survive. There have been several studies done on this by folks at institutions such as Harvard and Stanford. So the true default state of man is to work in harmony because we needed each other for our very survival.
2- One must first examine the true nature of a class system "socioeconomic" and how a child is nurtured in their given class system as they grow up. From the time that child is in their mother until they leave for the military needs to be accounted for to have a true reality. If you have a solider who has been under stress one way or another their entire life they are going to suffer from a variety of things that one might not suffer from if they have come from a more comfortable or nurturing environment. Just look at addiction rates, crime rates, physical and mental health rates, obesity rates, amongst the poor you will see a shocking correlation. Yet these are the men and women that are always doing the dirty work and seeing the true casualties of war. We also have trained people to keep mental health issue inside and that is the worst thing for one who suffers from mental illness. Hence higher suicide rates because we have conditioned folks not to talk about it. That has to be one of the most unnatural things to do in a pure human social setting. We are a species that is meant to communicate.
3- Let’s look at how we in America have entered war. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fictional incident. The weapons of mass destruction was a fictional incident. Who was really behind 9/11 could also be debated (dudes with box cutters). FDR had prior warning about Pearl Harbor yet he allowed it to happen (not going to get in the politics of WW2 but still Hitler had to go and Japan is another issue). This stuff is just crazy yet we as a people can be so easily manipulated by a variety of ways that we just take stuff for face value. We have been conditioned by the monetary machine not to be critical thinkers. If we were there is no way they (big money) could get away with the stuff they get away with. The list of corporations that have made a few people super rich from war is endless and we can blame both political parties for this as well. I wonder what the American public would have thought if they knew Standard Oil was selling products to the Nazi’s (food for thought). Therefore how can one conclude that war is a benefit to the population as a whole?
I think we need to be a little more nuanced in how we examine each of the conflicts that we have had over the years. World War II was inevitable given the conclusion of World War I. Had we done nothing, Hitler would have accomplished much more destruction. This is true of the Japanese at the time as well. Communism was certainly a threat but neither liberalism nor realism adequately dealt with it. Vietnam was a giant mistake.
The first Iraq War was, in many ways, the dawn of a new era of world peacekeeping. Yet the second Iraq War was essentially like Vietnam...a complete waste of money and lives. Saddam Hussein was contained and would've eventually been killed internally. We would have been better suited to attacking extremism in other more effective ways...like we are doing now, actually.
Certainly there are people that profit from war but I guess I'm wondering what your solution would be to our international security concerns.
If you were to remove profitability from war would we still live in a state of fear? Are security concerns really for the citizens of society or are they for maintaining the corporate strangle hold $$$$? I will say that Exxon's interests are very different than mine. That term national security is just total bullshit. Its fear driven therefor when folks are living in fear its easier to dictate or predict the outcome.
So, are you saying that we don't face any threats from abroad? Or the world itself doesn't face any threats?
All I'm saying is that term can be a label for things that really don't have anything to do with "true" national security. I feel that dudes living in caves are not a true threat to our security yet those guys are deemed a national security threat. Now if North Korea had a chance to get a nuclear weapon to Seattle that would be a threat. To me we have our priorities wrong. National security should be having clean water, clean air, good organic soil, sustainable energy, good health care. These are just a few of the things that we need to survive and live a healthy life. That is security!
Social organization is a natural phenomenon. The myth is the Romantic noble savage in harmony with the earth. The reality is, all the world over - humans organize into social structures and the conflicts between those social structures are typically violent. It may not be genetic, but it certainly is our nature.
It has only been since our technology has so vastly extended our ability to kill that we have begun to tame our social behavior.
If you were to remove profitability from war would we still live in a state of fear?
Hell, profit in the modern sense has tempered our earlier behavior. It is more profitable to trade with another people than to seek to destroy/dominate them.
National security should be having clean water, clean air, good organic soil, sustainable energy, good health care.
Well, we've had this discussion before but the DoD is already making great strides (particularly with this president) in all of these areas. I wholeheartedly agree.
I also think that you are correct, to a certain extent, that the problem of extremism is not a military one but an police problem. Or, more accurately, an intelligence concern. We don't need armies to take out guys in caves.
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