War

[Az]

Why does war happen? Or better yet how does war happen?

Some suggest that greed and power are motivators for war. That may be true for the individuals that have the power to declare war. But getting their forces to go to war for their own escalation of power is unlikely. It has to be pitched to the people in such as way that they wish to go to war as well.

So there can be layers to what causes war. Greed and power may be the initiators but without some justification the people will simply reject the call to war.

People do not inherantly wish to kill other people. In fact it goes against our very nature. You have to stoke fear and uncertainty about the targets. You have to dehumanize them. You have to create a moral argument that makes the participants believe they are doing good by killing the enemy.

Greed and power are poor motivaters for war. True there can be small bands of mercinaries that fight for greed. But moving a society to assault another society requires something more. Thus the motivation for war typically comes from within belief systems. Be they secular or sectarian. Some aspect of another's culture or governance is sited as immoral and this is used to whip up a frenzy of hatred. With this comes the willing individuals that will march forth and deliver righteous justice unto the heathens.

In the end no matter the initial motivation war becomes a conflict of moral values and beliefs. It is culture at war. It is one society trying to force its values on another.

[leftchick]

1. I think Hermann Goering had it just right....

“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”

— Leading Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death

[Swamp Rat]

2. War is the manifestation of a failure in leadership.

If he is indeed the leader of the "free world," then Bush is the most guilty person living.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. It is one society trying to force its values on another.

currency. By the way.... Bush didn't go to war, never went to war, never will go to war, he only plays war with other peoples' children.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0728-11.htm <more>
The Real Reasons Bush Went to War
by John Chapman
There were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors, instead treating us to the intriguing distractions of the Hutton and Butler reports.

Butler's overall finding of a "group think" failure was pure charity. Absurdities like the 45-minute claim were adopted by high-level officials and ministers because those concerned recognized the substantial reason for war - oil. WMD provided only the bureaucratic argument: the real reason was that Iraq was swimming in oil.

Some may still believe the eve-of-war contention by Donald Rumsfeld that "We won't take forces and go around the world and try to take other people's oil ... That's not how democracies operate." Maybe others will go along with Blair's post-war contention: "There is no way whatsoever, if oil were the issue, that it would not have been infinitely easier to cut a deal with Saddam."

But senior civil servants are not so naive. On the eve of the Butler report, I attended the 40th anniversary of the Mandarins cricket club. I was taken aside by a knighted civil servant to discuss my contention in a Guardian article earlier this year that Sir Humphrey was no longer independent. I had then attacked the deceits in the WMD report, and this impressive official and I discussed the geopolitical issues of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and US unwillingness to build nuclear power stations and curb petrol consumption, rather than go to war.

Saddam controlled a country at the center of the Gulf, a region with a quarter of world oil production in 2003, and containing more than 60% of the world's known reserves. With 115bn barrels of oil reserves, and perhaps as much again in the 90% of the country not yet explored, Iraq has capacity second only to Saudi Arabia. The US, in contrast, is the world's largest net importer of oil. Last year the US Department of Energy forecast that imports will cover 70% of domestic demand by 2025.