Dear Steven,

I guess when you're able to fire from a safe
distance at the push of a button - it makes
warfare more of a game - in the sense that it
becomes less personal - you're not actually
able to experience or see the carnage, as from
a bomber flying high above your designated target.

I remember reading about the men who when they
were confronted with the after effects of
Hiroshima/Nagasaki - when they actually saw
what they had done - the results on them were
devastating.

I fear that our world can become obsessed with
the problem of hatred and aggression, that it will
allow peace to be regarded as soft and weak,
yet our survival depends on its dominance.

Stephen Vincent Benet summed it up well:

"Oh where are you coming from soldier,
gaunt soldier
with weapons beyond any reach of my mind
with weapons so deadly
the world must grow older
and die in its tracks if it does not turn kind."

I also do wonder what effects killing as an office job will have on people.

Posted by stevenlmeyer

Be reasonably similar to the effect any other sort of pilot I'd assume. Just doing their job. That's what they sign up for, that's what they do. Different people react differently to the same situation. Some will lose it, it won't phase others. How does someone in the artillery, mortar crews, gunners on ships, intelligence operatives and various other non-direct contact roles deal with it?.

The reasons that Nazis introduced the Gas Ovens during WW2 as a method of killing was to solve two problems.

1. Efficiency in time and cost and
2. The fear that excessive hands-on activity would "reduce their soldiers into brutes".

They were aware that the many of these men would one day be be going home to their families.

Far easier to press a button (or sign a piece of paper) and not see the effects of your handiwork than to physically kill somebody.

It also allows killing on a much larger scale with little chance of conscience to get in the way.

Much nicer to marvel at the green-screen accuracy of a smart missile hitting its target than to see the red and black mangled aftermath.

War today is nothing like it was in the trenches of the Somme.

That experience actually changed society after that War with the end of rule by inheritance.

The trick nowadays is to keep the images away from the public.

No-one said anything about cowardice only about the effect on moral judgement.

for many war/murder is just a job...few are called to account..but here is one..[quoted extracts from]
http://republicbroadcasting.org/?p=2773

world/health organasation/un/us...funded and participated..in the final phase..of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program..involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis..in direct violation of the Biological Weapons Anti-terrorism Act.

Burgermeister’s charges include evidence that Baxter AG,..Austrian subsidiary of Baxter International,..deliberately sent out 72 kilos of live bird flu virus,..supplied by the WHO in the winter of 2009 to 16 laboratories in four counties.

She claims this evidence offers clear proof that the pharmaceutical companies and international government agencies themselves are actively engaged in producing,..developing,..manufacturing and distributing biological agents..classified as the most deadly bioweapons on earth in order to trigger a pandemic and cause mass death.

In her April charges,..she noted that Baxter’s lab in Austria,..one of the supposedly most secure biosecurity labs in the world,..

did not adhere to the most basic and essential steps to keep 72 kilos of a pathogen..classified as a bioweapon..meant to be kept..secure and separate..from all other substances..under stringent biosecurity level regulations,..but..it allowed it..to be mixed with the ordinary human flu virus..and sent from its facilities in Orth in the Donau.

In February, when a staff member at BioTest in the Czech Republic tested the material meant for candidate vaccines on ferrets,..the ferrets died.

This incident was not followed up by any investigation from the WHO..EU,..or Austrian health authorities. There was no investigation of the content of the virus material, and there is no data on the genetic sequence of the virus released.

In answer to parliamentary questions on May 20th,..the Austrian Health Minister,Alois Stoger,revealed that the incident had been handled not as a biosecurity lapse,as it should have been,...but as an offence against the veterinary code...

A veterinary doctor was sent to the lab for a brief inspection.

Burgermeister’s dossier..reveals that the release of the virus was to be an essential step for triggering a pandemic..that would allow the WHO to declare a Level 6 Pandemic.She lists the...

begins and ends at link
http://republicbroadcasting.org/?p=2773

A few years ago I compiled an anthology of
anti-war Australian poetry as part of my study
of Australian Literature. I tried to present a
powerful collective statement condemning modern
war. As I wrote then, "...when bombs are
referred to as "little boys," missiles are
"peacemakers" and human beings are "soft targets,"
in our media, new ways of thinking and talking about
the nuclear age are desperately needed."

War as a 9 to 5 job?
David Headon points out in, "Imagining The Real,"
"We need new ways of thinking to cope with the
nuclear age. It is here that writers, with their
concern for the human condition and their special
skills with language, can enable us to imagine the
horrific reality of nuclear arms and nerve us to build
an alternative future..."

The Canberra Times wrote back in the 90s,
"...the average person can expect to give up three
or four years of his or her life working to foot
the arms bill, while ever more people suffer from
illiteracy, ill health and chronic hunger..."

Whether we choose to destroy our civilisation or save
is a decision that hopefully may well be made within
our life times. But if more and more nuclear weapons
are built, and if more sophisticated means of
delivering them are devised, and if more and more
nations get control of these vile devices, and war does
indeed become a 9 to 5 job, then surely we risk our
own destruction.

If ways are found to reverse that process, then we can
divert unprecedented energy and resources to the real
problems that face us, including poverty, desease,
overpopulation, injustice, oppression, and the
devastation of our natural environment.

As Maurice Strangard insists:

"...Somewhere there must be a place
Called Little Peace
Where men with little humanity
Do not have the power
To make great decisions.
Where little fears do not lessen
The so small span
Of our lives,
Where
For once
We can know peace.
Just a little.
To know the taste of it."