No Hope

There is no hope, I tell you. There are no reasons. We kid ourselves.

In politics we think we do things for reasons. We don’t, except in the details. We do as we do because of what we are. We have wars because having wars is what men do. Reasons are only aftermarket appendages.

Read history. Everywhere, in every epoch, with only the occasional brief oversight, leaders come to power—kings, tribal chiefs, emperors, presidents—and attack anyone convenient. Always, somewhere, there are wars. Depending, the participants use rocks, pointed sticks, arrows, swords, tanks, carriers or Stratofortresses, these artifacts being mere details. A nuclear submarine is just a gaudier pointed stick.

Start where you like. Take Joshua. He attacked Canaan, conquered cities, and put the populations to the sword, men, women, and children. He wasn’t the first and certainly not the last. Assyrians, Romans, Tamburlaine, Genghis Khan, the Crusaders, on and on, through Nanjing and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, business as usual. Indiscriminate killing of whole populations is normal military procedure. Today it is thought proper to justify it in some way—liquidating a city would cause the enemy to surrender, see, saving lives, or something.

This is feel-good twaddle. Humanity has acquired just enough moral sense to be embarrassed about the things it does, but not enough to stop doing them. Dresden and Hamburg were put to the sword, however you name it.

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