It's high time not only to offer the very Tucholsky quotation on Omnium, but to assure any visitor that I'd very probably not needed to know Kurt Tucholsky to come to the same conclusion:
Soldiers are (potential) murderers.And I add: Certain politicians, diplomats, businessmen etc. etc., too.
Not to forget their spooks and henchmen.
Anyone fancy to sue me ?
The peace of the night.
I live in a town with five nearby military bases -- including an Army division. When the Division is back from Afghanistan or Iraq, the local rates of violent crime soar.
ReplyDeleteAs one officer said to me, "We teach them to solve problems with violence, then they come home and 'solve' their personal problems with violence. Go figure!"
How many people were killed in my name since my birth, and why? I don't know. Do i feel safer? I don't know. Were these people killed for peace and stability? I don't know. For democracy? I don't know. For my personal well being and that of my compatriots? I don't know. Did they kill others so as to give my mother a happy and peaceful old day? I don't know, she doesn't know. We need more than wikileaks to know this.
ReplyDeleteBut one thing is for sure: weapons are there to kill people. For any reason. And weapons make money.
And it is clearly not healthy to be a soldier. As soldiers may be killed. Or don't stop being soldiers, as Paul describes it...
Bertus
True they are but their political and other masters must take teir due part of the blame
ReplyDeleteCertainly not exactly murderers, but certainly not exactly heroes.
ReplyDeleteAs we have discussed many times on many previous posts. Hoping I'm linking here to Nov.11, 2009. With much love, understanding and respect.:)
Back in the days when I was a protester of the Vietnam War one of the first things I realized was the incalculable harm that was done to the spirits of the soldiers.
ReplyDeletePaul,
ReplyDeletethese are tragedies of whoch many have to suffer - except of those who are responsible.
Bertus,
feel yourself virtually hugged, my friend.
Jams
... which is exactly the crux.
Claude,
... and how 'furiously' our discussions were ...
And nowadays? I consider the second a wonderful one, in which you decided to stumble upon Omnium. :)
Merci de tout coeur.
Susan,
interesting you mention this.
I did not think of, let alone care about any soldiers psyche, in the beginning.
I was 13. On my way back home from school passing a news agency I saw a face. A face of a one year old boy. Never I shall forget this face. The face of an old man.
A face of a Biafran boy whose mother's breast had no milk to feed him.
1967 this was. And I remember that when coming home I could not eat.
With hindsight, I do find interesting that when six years old, I did not miss to read a newspaper; and yes: never, these days, I'd come to think of those 'poor soldiers', only of those 'poor people'.
And it took quite couple of years until I started to think of those who would send soldiers (not their sons, of course) to cause so many individual tragedies.
'Tragedies' is, of course, the wrong word.
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