Would you go to war?

Niall said:
Dylan said:
I think if I were in the shoes of the population of Donetsk or Lugansk that I would probably do very much the same as they are. A situation like that would be one of the very few I would feel comfortable donning military gear and a rifle with the intent to kill. I really feel for those people and am very worries for their futures. The illegitimate, western backed junta is horrible.
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A few of you have said this.

Here's a question for you: should the Ukrainian and/or Russian members of our forum, some of whom are very close to this situation in eastern Ukraine - either geographically or because they have family ties there, and thus feel even more strongly than you about the injustice of what's happening there, join the war?

Are they 'answering their conscience' by fighting that battle... or can they 'walk away' yet still do something in terms of 'answering their conscience'/serving something higher than themselves?
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I don't know the answer to your question.
Everybody should decide according their own conscience.

What I would do is this:

1. Provide immediate help for wounded, try to save lives, having a vehicle get them to a hospital, if this is not possible, give first aid via fellow medical staff who I know.(reliable, like minded)
2. Provide food and shelter who is in need, having a bunker, perhaps more then one, a safe place where people who lost their house can go.
3. Build a local network of healthy, capable people who're aware of resources, food, first aid kits, vehicles.
4. Perhaps help guiding people who can leave on their own foot to a safe country's border where they can go.

I think that's what Zakharchenko and his people doing.
When it come to weapons: I'm not expert, I don't even know how to shot. :/
 
I wouldn't go to war... if I did, it would probably be in a non-combatant role.

If aliens showed up though, of the non-psychopath human type, I might just turn up ready to squish little green men underneath my army boots.

In all seriousness though, I think it depends on a lot of things. Sometimes you may have no choice if your homeland is encircled and their is no way out other than through a hail of bullets.
 
Niall, good way to phrase it.

Well, if there was an opportunity to leave, I would. I recall that is what Haffner was planning to do, but stayed for his father's wishes. He saw the signs, but these obligations kept him in.

In terms of Ukraine now, Russia is looking to extend the legal stay above 30 days, but would one be able to support themselves and their families there? I suppose there is less hatred of refugees there, than in Western Europe/US?

If there was no means of leaving, I would offer support. I would not like to be a soldier, but as an engineer or medic - repairing damage to help those who fight to fight. I don't think I would be able to shoot people without it taking chunks of me out (and sometimes I wonder if karma is that part of ourselves that tests whether we choose to survive at all costs- or can accept death if need be as "freedom"?). I don't know how Caesar did it, perhaps it was a necessary evil at the time and he had a higher purpose to shift the Roman Empire?
 
Emma said:
Niall said:
Dylan said:
I think if I were in the shoes of the population of Donetsk or Lugansk that I would probably do very much the same as they are. A situation like that would be one of the very few I would feel comfortable donning military gear and a rifle with the intent to kill. I really feel for those people and am very worries for their futures. The illegitimate, western backed junta is horrible.
Click to expand...

A few of you have said this.

Here's a question for you: should the Ukrainian and/or Russian members of our forum, some of whom are very close to this situation in eastern Ukraine - either geographically or because they have family ties there, and thus feel even more strongly than you about the injustice of what's happening there, join the war?

Are they 'answering their conscience' by fighting that battle... or can they 'walk away' yet still do something in terms of 'answering their conscience'/serving something higher than themselves?
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer to your question.
Everybody should decide according their own conscience.

What I would do is this:

1. Provide immediate help for wounded, try to save lives, having a vehicle get them to a hospital, if this is not possible, give first aid via fellow medical staff who I know.(reliable, like minded)
2. Provide food and shelter who is in need, having a bunker, perhaps more then one, a safe place where people who lost their house can go.
3. Build a local network of healthy, capable people who're aware of resources, food, first aid kits, vehicles.
4. Perhaps help guiding people who can leave on their own foot to a safe country's border where they can go.

I think that's what Zakharchenko and his people doing.
When it come to weapons: I'm not expert, I don't even know how to shot. :/
Click to expand...

Yes. Help as much as possible.If war is coming where I live I choose to be practical with my character and my conscience. Your four points are for me a good way, the only way in fact when you are in the middle of a war. Be practical and help. Help children, find water,help nurses, bring people to hospitals, participating in shelters, help old people that with kids are the most vulnerable. I can see myself in this situation. I can not see myself killing but if I have to defend myself or kids, for example, I don't know.

Thanks for these four points.
 
This is an important topic.

I grew up during the Vietnam war, which was televised on the nightly news programs at the time. I came to oppose the war enough to write a letter to the editor defending Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon for his vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. (I was surprised when the editor of the Oregonian newspaper's editorial page published my letter, especially because I happened to be going out with his middle daughter at the time and think he printed my letter in spite of that fact.)

I was in college a little over a year later in 1969, and a girl asked me travel with her to attend the Vietnam war moratorium march in San Francisco. We weren't dating, but she didn't want to travel alone on the hippie 'grey rabbit' bus. She said a friend of her family would put us both up in San Francisco and I wasn't doing anything more interesting at the time, so I went. As it happened, her family friend was the lady who designed the poster that read, "War is Unhealthy for Children and Other Living Things". We stayed at the St Francis hotel - in separate rooms - wearing blue jeans, walked the march route from Union Square to Golden Gate Park, then rode the 'grey rabbit' back. (She was a nice Jewish girl, and I recall that her first name was Robin, but I don't think I ever saw her again.)

The Vietnam antiwar movement in the US was growing during that time. The Kent State massacre happened the following May, where four students were murdered by Ohio National Guard troops. I was a physics major with a full four-year scholarship, but I was so appalled by the likely prospect of graduating to a career in the US military-industrial complex that I changed my major to philosophy.

Although I had a student deferment, I got lucky in the draft lottery with the number 314, which was higher than the induction limit of 195 for the year I was born. I wasn't faced with the choice of either being drafted or fleeing to Canada, but I would like to think that I'd have left the country rather than submit to the draft and go to war.

I never served in any branch of the US military, but the White House sent a letter of condolence for my death in Vietnam to my family, signed by President Ford. Someone else with the same name died there, apparently, so I have to assume my name is on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.

* * *

Coincidentally maybe, the what-if analysis at xkcd this week touches on this topic: http://what-if.xkcd.com/127/ . The xkcd what-if conclusion echoes that of the 1983 film WarGames:

"The only winning move is not to play."

There is an extensive body of work on the philosophical theory of Just War, the principles of which are summarized at https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/pol116/justwar.htm and discussed at some length at http://www.iep.utm.edu/justwar/ .

But Mark Twain perhaps said it best in his brief essay The War Prayer, the full text of which is at http://warprayer.org/ . He withheld that work from the public during his lifetime, but he allowed its publication posthumously. The entire essay is well worth reading, as it sets the scene in a folksy, engaging way, but the short text of Mark Twain's powerful statement - the war prayer itself - is as follows:

"Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
 
I was faced with this question in 1970 during the Vietnam war. My answer then and now remains the same, a resounding "NO". The reason for that answer has morphed somewhat during the last 45 years; however, killing and dying lies at the root of it all.
While watching a weekly syndicated television program portraying WWII combat, the telephone rang (the year is 1963). Dad answered and let out a groan I remember to this day. His younger (38 yrs old) brother (my baptismal godfather) had just been killed in a single car crash. It was surmised he had been self-medicating (alcohol), no doubt due to ongoing 'shell shock' (ptsd), and various injuries suffered during WWII. Dad had already lost his oldest brother during that war. Devastation and heartbreak in spades.
Fast forward 6-7 years and the news reports of the Vietnam war clearly show that we are winning! Dead body counts prove it! I was in college at the time to mainly avoid the draft; killing and dying was not an option for me. I dropped a course of study and my full time status as a student dropped to part time, throwing me into the military draft pool. I was testing fate and didn't care. Sure enough I was called for my draft physical but flunked it due to my poor eyesight. I had a plan going in: artificially induced hypertension that hopefully could be corroborated by a sympathetic MD that I had contacted. Turned out he wasn't needed. Plan B was Canada.
My two older brothers were drafted; the first to Vietnam and the other to Germany (due to theater of war rules). Fortunately both came home unscathed, physically anyway. They remain to this day the proverbial Authoritarian Followers and it breaks my heart. Both extremely intelligent but oh so blinded. I see a big part of them both that has 'died'.

So, summing up: "Would I go to war?" :thdown:
 
As an eleven year old child I eagerly joined the local cadet force, which was affiliated with the parachute regiment. Being initiated at such a young age would give you a jump up the ladder when it came to signing up with the "real" army. The lure of being a "hero" was quite mesmerising. The drive pushing us along was to work your way up the chain of command so that you would be able to "order" other recruits around. The less obvious one was drill practice, marching up and down the parade ground to the orders of a higher rank. Quite simply to numb your thought process to just simply follow orders. After a couple of years, it started to dawn on me that there was no room to question anything and it was quite simply about following orders. The excitement of it all quickly wore off at that point of recognition and as I tend to do more often than not, it was just a case of "that's enough of that".

When I spoke to my Mum about how she felt watching me become a "soldier" at such a young age, she said that it was quite a harrowing experience to see how quickly I embraced it all and she was worried that it was only going to progress towards me enlisting as soon as I was old enough.

Anyway to get back on track, a number of years ago I reached a particular point in my life where I felt that there were blockages holding me back from progressing any further. I had reviewed as much of this particular life as I was able to, up to that said point, yet still could feel that there was something that I couldn't quite get a grip on.

Without going into the details too much and to keep this post specific, I ended up re-living a number of traumatic scenarios. The one relevant to all this is that I could recall being told by my Mother of a bygone era that I didn't have an option and that I would have to go and fight, regardless of whether I wanted to or not. Anyway, off I went and that was that.
I didn't return.
I'm not able to recall the specifics of how I died exactly.

Due to my mind being somewhat befuddled by all these memories re-surfacing, (there were numerous episodes that were being recalled, this being only one of them) trying not to project the Mother of then onto my Mother now was a difficult task. Past lifes seemed to be merging with the current one and it was all very confusing trying to address what was going on.The emotional content though was particularly directed towards my Mother of that bygone era for making me go. And to top it off was the realisation that I was actually still alive?!!

Going to war will involve having to do things you wouldn't normally choose to do, these things can haunt you (not just in this life!).

Even though the circumstances are different now, I still can't say what I'd do though.

When I ask myself "Would I be able to do go to war"?

The answer I come up with is "We're in a war already".
 
All through high school I always thought about joining the army because then I would have a career and they would pay for my education. Last year, I almost dropped out of school to enlist in the Canadian military, but after a lot of thinking and a conversation with one of my Dad's friends (he is a Major in the Canadian forces) I decided against it.
Thinking about it now, I realize that I wanted to enlist for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to find an "escape" of some sort from society. I guess I felt trapped and I felt like I wasn't really doing anything productive to help me progress in life. I felt like I was just wasting time especially since I never went to class either because I would just teach myself all the class material by just reading the textbooks.
I think finding Laura's work actually saved me from making this impulsive decision. After reading all the things about the military, psychopaths and war I know I made the right decision.
I don't think I could take someones life but if sh*t hits the fan and I needed to protect my family and loved ones then I would fight for them.
 
I was drifted on few occasions: first time i served in JNA (Yugoslavia Peoples' Army) before war. It was a kinda military experience cause i had a telecomm educational background so i received some formal training on repairing communications equipment. Which also i skipped by being placed at entrance post of logistics facility, where i was switching incoming calls to officers inside and letting the vehicles in and out. Just pressing the buttons... During the war i was drifted to join air surveillance, but curiously had a chance to refuse, which i did gladly - offended officer than said that next drift will be to infantry, and he was right... I was no ordinary Croat, since i wasn't very eager to go to front line while generals and politicians et al were getting rich... I didn't wanna fight for capitalism and was marked for revenge...

So at first opportunity, mass mobilization close to the end of war, occurred they come for me - devil will get you anyway... They were corralling us far away from front and sergeants were telling us that we won't go to battle, so there was no need to practice anything. But commander of brigade wanted to become a general...

Sometimes along those few days i have made/felt a strong decision that i won't kill nobody. In no time i was transferred to comm platoon embedded to command post, since acquaintance of mine who i worked with in national comm company recognized me there: "What are you doing in infantry - you are telecommunications technician!" ; recommending me to superiors...

Finally we ended up in heavy battle, but i was somehow spared - i guess - from direct battle experience ... i didn't shoot any bullet and when i was returning all of them to depository, guy there was not believing what he was seeing: "You can keep them - there will be jet more war!"

"No thank you - not if asking me!" i responded...

Y
 
The end justifying means concept has brought about a lot of violence in the world. That concept convinces many deciding on participating in war. But what are the ends we see? I see just more violence and war. The idea that acts of violence brings peace, while convincing in theory, in demonstrated fact, does not appear to work. Exhibit A: the world today. In fact it is illogical if you consider peace and violence as opposite destinations - if we journey down the road of violence, that is the destination we will be going and only moving further from peace. However I don't particularly like the word peace, because we could be peacefully numb as a society and that's not a good thing. What I mean is more in terms of us thriving physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually etc. and thus contributing to thriving communities. I don't feel war leads us in that direction just the opposite. I wouldn't participate in war.
 
Somehow, it has always been clear to me; revolutions and wars bring only misery and suffering serving whomever purpose but not an ordinary human being. It's perpetual vicious cycle and resolves nothing for human beings on a long run.

Learning and getting to know the truth about our reality, about ourselves, our role in the Universe, has taken away from me the last illusion about nations, religions, races, civilization, national gastronomy, personality, and so on. The war is epitome of evil that infects a human soul and body and through that the future generations to come. We cannot fight the evil. The choice that is left to us is to acknowledge it and move away finding our own way, just as we have aCHOICE doing so even now in so-called peaceful time. Once we take a part in it, we throw ourselves back in the cycle. It changes our chemistry on both physical and spiritual level and the "Work" that had been done get lost. It's great and noble to be courageous and strong, it's a unique human quality worth admiration, but everyone has their breaking point and the cost is irreparable. Protecting our loved ones, our "tribe", is not courageous act, IMO, it's a simple act of humanity ("something that allows us to act on our values rather than our impulses").

To Live With The Truth consciously and persistently, against all the odds in this world, though, requires a lot of courage and stamina.

IMO, my purpose for being here is fighting "my own battle" (my personality, my "demons", ...) which basically is the result of past cycles of all that partakes of my DNA, thus becoming that what I REALLY am and better aligning with that that is much greater than myself.
 
It is noble and honorable to have a negative attitude for the state this world is in, with all the abuse and killing off of the human population. In many cases treated worse than animals. Remember where we are and the state of affairs we have allowed to flourish. In a world under the influence of 4D STO beings, this would not be a problem as the psychopathic manner would not be the controlling factor affecting the people, as it is here and now.

It also is our duty to understand the mechanisms by which we are chained. At some point, there always is a battle. The main battle we face is the battle for our souls, all else means nothing should you loose your soul and your life. So, it seems to break down to a person's motivation and being motivated by lies and falsehood does not give immunity from the wrong choice.

This may sound simple, but it may be one of the toughest things a person can do, to fight for your soul.

Should a wolf come to the door and try to devour me, I likely would fight to the death. But first I might try tossing out a bit of food, till the intent was clear, that I was to be dinner. At that point it becomes fight or die. If you have found your soul, death is no longer an issue, as was the case with Cesar. Should you win, you live to fight another day as the battle is ever present.

I also believe that the feminine and masculine energies play different roles, so what constitutes helping for one person may be different from what another may be faced to deal with. The bottom line is that I would stand shoulder to shoulder with people fighting for basic human rights. Fighting for humanity, even if at times humanity doesn't understand.
 
WIN 52 said:
It is noble and honorable to have a negative attitude for the state this world is in, with all the abuse and killing off of the human population. In many cases treated worse than animals. Remember where we are and the state of affairs we have allowed to flourish. In a world under the influence of 4D STO beings, this would not be a problem as the psychopathic manner would not be the controlling factor affecting the people, as it is here and now.

It also is our duty to understand the mechanisms by which we are chained. At some point, there always is a battle. The main battle we face is the battle for our souls, all else means nothing should you loose your soul and your life. So, it seems to break down to a person's motivation and being motivated by lies and falsehood does not give immunity from the wrong choice.

This may sound simple, but it may be one of the toughest things a person can do, to fight for your soul.

Should a wolf come to the door and try to devour me, I likely would fight to the death. But first I might try tossing out a bit of food, till the intent was clear, that I was to be dinner. At that point it becomes fight or die. If you have found your soul, death is no longer an issue, as was the case with Cesar. Should you win, you live to fight another day as the battle is ever present.

I also believe that the feminine and masculine energies play different roles, so what constitutes helping for one person may be different from what another may be faced to deal with. The bottom line is that I would stand shoulder to shoulder with people fighting for basic human rights. Fighting for humanity, even if at times humanity doesn't understand.
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Many thanks WIN 52 for sharing your thoughts - very much agree with your trenchant views. The battle for the soul will indeed be the toughest battle we will have to face in these times to come....
 
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