A Solemn Warning

War is a bloody, filthy business. It’s a deadly enterprise and mostly wasteful. I think of some lines from the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus:

“They sent forth men to battle,
But no such men return;
And home, to claim their welcome,
Come ashes in an urn.”

We hide that reality, really well. We hide it in flags and snappy uniforms, in patriotic songs and cheering parades. The dead don’t see or hear any it. They are buried and forgotten because what is promoted and endlessly exhibited before us are the supersonic bombers, the giant warships, the sleek nuclear missiles that promise our protection.

Our soldiers are strewn across a battlefield of gross cynicism and lethal greed created by what must be completely soulless politicians, warmongers, psychopaths, killers, puffed up blowhards, and scandalous hustlers who pay our soldiers pennies, use and waste them, and leave them broken, ravished, and demolished.

And we celebrate these atrocities as patriotic?

It’s all a vulgar and malicious demonstration of contempt for humanity.

I am weary from being outraged by this national obsession with war.

The videos and photos of the slaughter in Syria, in Yemen, in Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Iraq; the terrorist attacks in London, France, Germany, Norway, and Spain; and the attacks here in America though deadly have been nothing compared to other places across Europe. What purpose do these killings serve?

Happy tourists gunned down in cafes and clubs or while walking through a shopping area. Murdered in the name of war. Precious children carried bloodied and dying in their father’s arms; women running helplessly in the streets; families buried under the rubble of their bombed homes; Christ! When will we come to our senses?

And now. Now, our leaders are pulling us out of an arms agreement with Iran. I’m not even interested in the politics of that. It’s bullshit whatever it is. Money men vying for more and more, gouging and gormandizing their way to their bloody treasure. While civilization teeters on the brink of catastrophe, perhaps annihilation.

Clam down, Tim, you say. Take a breath. Chill. Things are not as bad as they seem.

Yeah, tell that to the men and women in uniform left now to the insanity and gluttony of our leaders. Left in battles they cannot win.

I identify with a character in one of the Scottish author’s Iain Banks’ novels who said, “I’ve been thinking about war a lot recently, and I think I’ve decided it’s wrong. We are defeating ourselves in waging it, and will destroy ourselves by winning it.”

That’s a solemn warning. Will it ever be heard?

© 2018 Timothy Moody