War: The Forgotten Chapter

Watching a lion entering the territory of another lion, and the stand-off that takes place when the other lion is defending his territory, send shivers down the spine. The most brutal and ferocious fight breaks out between the two lions. At times, the odds are not even where more than one lion attacks another lion protecting his territory, and other times the protecting lion is old and worn out. In any case, only one will prevail, the others will die in battle. The prevailing one reigns over the territory and the pride.

The need to feed, and the very basic requirements for survival, excluding greed, tyranny, and glory, are what drives these lions to invade other territories; otherwise they are going to perish from hunger and thirst.

The same case would apply to all species. The growth in the number of the individuals, combined with the limitation or lack of resources, will drive the individuals to look elsewhere and fight if their survival is dependant on that.

Humans, nevertheless, have a very different type of motivation. It is no longer just the control over the necessary resources, but the greed for riches. We have become much more developed than other animals, and the needs that have to be satisfied have gone to astronomical levels, to the point that full satisfaction is impossible.

Many scientists have ventured to explore what motivates men and women to do what they do, and we have come to accept greed and discontent as part of our human nature despite being flaws. And so we fight.

Jumping forward in history to our current day, the formula for invasion in search of resources and the need to gain control over these resources, have led to a new concept of organized fighting with strategy and schematics, namely, wars. Weapons, military training, arsenals, fighting machines, have become the most developed science. The need to be able to attack and conquer has become the occupation of all governments, and they name it the need to defend.

Ensuring the availability of resources was always taken care of by means of trade and exchange, money, goods, services, etc. Beyond which, where trade fails, and greed reigns, we go to war. We invade. We kill.

Fact: War machines are the most expensive machines to build.
Fact: War machines require the highest level of technology and sophistication.
Fact: War machines are the least lasting machines.
Fact: Governments around the world spend no less than one third of their income to build armies from the money that was supposed to serve the public as it came from the public in taxes (in the U.S. the figure is 65% of the GDP)
Fact: Wars have claimed lives more than any other epidemic or means of death, and continues to do so while more epidemics come to our attention.
Fact: Wars leave countries and governments in debt for many years to come, while a war might last for no longer than one week.
Fact: Rebuilding what war has destroyed greatly exceeds what the war costs, let alone what can never be rebuilt as in the case of lives and pain.
Fact: Wars are becoming more and more devastating by the day, and weapons are becoming deadlier and deadlier by the day.
Fact: Most of our current everyday luxuries started out as military inventions (look at what happened to the internet)
Fact: Wars are more frequent. Wars are less justified.

Bottom Line: Our greed drives us to kill more and more by the day, and we spend our tax money to make us better killers.

Media, in their capacity as a reliable information provider, lead people into believing that they are at war because they are threatened, and people nowadays believe (sadly) anything that goes on the television or what the media tells them.

Nevertheless, people around the world are becoming more educated, opinionated, and have better access to information, thus allowing themselves to see beyond what the media have to portray. But the majority will still continue to believe what the media has to offer, rather that their own due diligence in search for the true facts. Media only offers on view, and it is always sliced, diced, edited, and relayed with commentary, to ensure that the message they want to deliver is not distorted, besides being true or otherwise. Media will only represent a voice; it only makes a difference of who has access to media to make sure they are heard. Governments, having access to all, will always be heard as they would like. Civilians, citizens, as individuals, will rarely have enough access or coverage.

Whether we would like to admit it or not, the fact that governments around the world still have great control over media, will not change. Freedom of speech will still be restricted to what the governments will allow. Voices that are rising to high to the disliking of the government will be censored to the liking, or just not shown.

The U.S. has been the greatest success at doing all of the above. Starting with the military research spending, to control over the resources, to censoring and editing the media, and creating wars. Albeit they have the largest arsenal in the world, enough to wipe out the next 10 largest armies, and wipe out 1 or 2 continents from existence within 2 weeks.
Is this the need to defend, or is this the preparation for invasion???

Sadly, the U.S. now has a set of loyal followers, who will always follow for right or wrong. Destruction of the world means nothing to them, because they will be employing their businesses to rebuild. The greatest profit making machines.

Looking closer to home, and more specifically in the latest crisis between Israel and Lebanon, it is a great loss. The image portrayed earlier of the two fighting lions sends shivers down the spine, but images of dead people, piled corpses, mutilated children, destruction of what took hundreds of years to build, and loss of life, no longer have an effect on us humans, because we see it all too often. Not only in Lebanon, but also in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, and even in Israel. The images are the most horrible and tormenting thought for anyone, but our eyes and minds have become desensitized to the point of blindness, and we lost our conscience.

We have become a society that is not able to live without war. The concept of fellowship and being able to sympathize with our fellow humans despite our differences is extinct. Our own development to being smarter, advanced, and evolved society is going to drive us to extinction from wars, and along all signs of life on this planet.

Final fact for consideration: There are enough nuclear heads in weaponry and ready for launch, that are enough to erase all life forms from the face of this earth 3 times, and the effects will last for no less than 200 years. At this rate, extinction for the human race is inevitable, and along with that, all life forms on earth.