Recently, I saw an image on the internet of a spray painted wall, declaring that ‘war is just terrorism with a bigger budget’. In relation to this image there were many people agreeing, and many people shouting things like unpatriotic and ungrateful. This is not the first time I have seen an anti-war or indeed pro-war post and rolled my eyes, wishing there was some way I could disassociate myself from that part of the human race. Perhaps it’s a point of view thing, relying on the way I was brought up and the way I view the world; most particularly the way that I have been taught to challenge everything I read or hear and decide for myself what I think of it, instead of taking it as the right opinion without thinking about it. Either way, this is my opinion, and one that I hold very strongly.
I would like to tell you why I do not agree with war, and in particular the conflicts that British (and American) troops are currently involved in. The way I will do this is by taking points that I have seen repeated time and time again across the internet and other discussion forums, relating both to war and to the soldiers themselves, and responding to those points.
1.‘They’re just doing their jobs.’
I see this a lot on pro-military support sites and forums. This was the exact same excuse used by Nazi soldiers. I do not just mean the ones fighting on the front lines – I mean the ones lining up Jews and homosexuals and other so-called Untermenschen and shooting them all, or putting them into gas chambers. Please. Following orders is NEVER an excuse. If you are an adult human you ought to know your rights from wrongs, and you should also know that any choices you make are yours to make. Your commanding officer did not force you to shoot someone. If you are a native of the US or UK, you were certainly not forced to join the army/navy/air force/etc either. That was a free choice that you made, aware of the fact that you might end up in a combat situation. There is no element of ‘just following orders’ about this. If someone gave you a knife in a dark alleyway and told you to stab the next person to walk past without explaining why, would you do it?
2.‘If the troops weren’t fighting to defend us over there, we’d have a war on our doorsteps.’
Uh-huh. And how do you think those who send bombs over here justify their actions? Yet again, we are not children. ‘They started it’ is not a good enough excuse. If there were not troops out there fighting every day and pushing the war forward, would there still be a war? Has anyone stopped and taken the time to even figure that out?
3.‘They are brave men and women and we should respect them for it.’
I do not think that it is very brave to kill someone. I think it is illegal, actually, last time I looked. Oh right, yeah, they are trying to kill you so that makes it alright. Hang on, aren’t they trying to kill you because you came into their country with guns and the like and declared war? Brave is being a full-time carer for someone with a disability or mental illness. Brave is giving birth to a child and dedicating your life to it even though you know that he or she will never have a full mental capacity, or will never be able to walk like everyone else, or heaven forbid will not live long. Brave is standing up in court to convict your rapist so that he cannot attack anyone else. Waving a gun around to show how tough you are? Not brave at all, particularly where civilians are involved. You know, the non-bulletproof-vest-wearing kind.
4.‘They needed help getting rid of ____’ [Insert Saddam Hussein/corruption/terrorists/etc here]
You know what? Who made the West rulers of the world? Who decided that we should be the ones to decide how everyone else lives? There are tribesmen in areas of Africa who undertake rituals such as scarification, and who perform body mutilation on the young tribespeople as part of a coming of age ritual. If they performed those rituals in this country, they could be arrested and possibly imprisoned for ABH, GBH, or torture. Are we going to send troops there, next, and kill their chiefs and give them all iPhones and Nikes to make sure that they stay on the straight and narrow from now on? No, we are not, and many people would consider that to be a ridiculous suggestion. So why interfere anywhere, if you will not interfere everywhere? Why are we not sending troops to every single country where anything the slightest bit immoral happens? Well, because of course they would be too busy dealing with those issues on home soil. Besides, if you are really going to push that argument, don’t you think that we should be doing something major about North Korea? For those who cannot stand by and watch atrocities being committed, well, there are other ways of dealing with that than fighting, democratic ways. The UN exists for a reason, and though in many cases it is undercut by non-members, the way to deal with this is to improve the UN, NOT to abandon it and raise a grenade instead. You do not help the citizens of a country by slaughtering them, you help by bringing their leaders and ONLY their leaders to justice, and then you move on.
5.‘They are fighting terror.’
The most repeated, and most ludicrous statement about the last few years of conflicts. Let us analyse, for a moment, the word ‘terror’. It means fear, but more than that – an intense fear of someone or something, or, in another meaning, ’violence committed or threatened by a group to intimidate or coerce a population, as for military or political purposes’. By sending troops to attack people in other countries we are, in this second meaning, actually being terrorists. And, by allowing publicity over these terrorists that we are fighting to increase, by stirring up nations and telling them that we must fight the terrorists, we are increasing and spreading the fear of their violent acts – in other words, we are completing the goals set by the terrorists themselves.
Now, moving from those quite specific points to more general ones, there are I am sure many points that could be thrown at me using historical precedents. For example, what about people that are trying to expand their countries into others, potentially your own? Well, to this I would say that there is a line (a fine one, yes, but a line nonetheless) between waging war and defending your country. Of course it is obvious that in some cases, it is not correct to stand by and allow your countrymen to be executed – sometimes you must fight in defence of yourself and those you hold dear. Where that line is crossed, however, is when you make a pre-emptive attack or take the fight to their country instead. In this case, you are waging war. What about in defence of others? In defence of democracy? What if all other measures have failed and someone is spitting in the face of international laws and taking over Poland, for example? Well, that is an incredibly difficult situation. On the one hand, what happens in other countries is really none of your concern. On the other hand, it is immoral and cowardly to look the other way when people are suffering under someone who should be stopped. Again, I suggest that going in and getting out quickly are the solutions, rather than declaring war on a whole nation of innocent people. Often the only reason that dictators or the like manage to get into power and begin their genocides or takeover operations is through the strength of their military. Hitler was voted in to power legally, yes, as were many like him, but then he built up his armies and it became incredibly dangerous to oppose him. To this day military rule is the de facto force controlling more countries than we like to think about. The question here, then, is not ‘is it moral to fight to save someone else’ – because the answer to that is undoubtedly ‘yes’. The question is, how did this happen in the first place? The answer – the use of the military.
If, for example, Hitler had been bringing in social reforms for the good of everyone, and inviting other nations to join him in his glorious empire of happiness and love, there would have been no need to fight at all. We could all have joined up, and lived as one nation over the entire earth, helping each other and abolishing warfare altogether. It sounds ludicrous – but why? Why should it matter to me whether my nationality is labelled as one thing or another? Do I feel less connected or able to connect to someone in Florida just because they are not English? No! If I met that person from Florida we could become real friends! We probably have some things in common, like being human or enjoying music! And if we were to meet someone from Brussels, and someone from Tokyo, and someone from Bahrain, chances are we might be able to get along with them too! So why is it that as soon as the idea of ‘territory’ is brought up, weapons are brandished? [disclaimer: read the above paragraph very carefully. I am not saying we should have joined up with the real Hitler. No flaming there, guys]
As I have already said, it is rather likely that someone will disagree with me, and that someone will find a way to batter my points to the ground. But I defy anyone to tell me that, if there were no military or weapons of any sort in existence, that the world would not be a better place.
