War can never be justified. Discuss
War. One of the most destructive and futile thing on our planet, yet the ambition of war is usually to find peace is it not? Battle tends to start over the love of power; William Gladstone once said “We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.” So therefore is it not correctly speaking by saying that war is needed in order to destroy the love of power that creates such emotions to fight and finally show our world peace? In the eyes of many people there is a justification for a war of defence, none for a war of aggression. But under what terms can you define what the intention for the final outcome is to be known as? How can we ever conclude that some particular wars may be more moral than another? The past is all we have to learn from. With new generations living in a world where developed countries live in peace and the young are free to grow up in freedom with an education, health care and human rights.
This is the generation of money rich countries, such as England that do not see, nor feel the effects of war. Instead it appears in the developing world, where with one glance around you can see children from around the age of 14 years and younger famished, undernourished and anorexic with no one to care, love or even say it will be all right. Children are dependent on the care, empathy, and attention of adults who love them. The war brings Impacts to their childhood, children find themselves without any education during the war as their right of learning is lost, those children who are lucky enough to be found by their government are forced to move into refugee or displaced person camps, where they wait for years in miserable circumstances for normal life to resume, if it ever does, and to them that’s a life line, to us in a developed world with no life experience after being protected in warm loving homes’ our whole lives its seems like a living hell, and those who have seen it know it’s worse. But those unlucky ones are the ones with disabilities that the war forces into the darkness, And what about a little girl, most are forced into prostitution just keep themselves alive, ethical downfall to this is she will then in the eyes of god and her society lose the opportunity to marry as she is not pure. Long after the war has ended, these lives will never attain the potential they had before the impact of war. Why is it that listing the effects war has on children is so easy?
Injury, disability and illness. Rape, prostitution, psychological and moral impacts. Social and cultural losses. Children may lose their community and its culture during war once again destroying another followed by another. But I think the worst impact that children take in the war is when they are put in the front line. It is estimated that there are tens of thousands of young people under 18 serving in militias in about 60 countries. War is a choice for someone who has lived, not for a being that had just been blessed with life.
Displacing the innocent, while the guilty take comfort in their destruction of the world around them and of those unknown to them as families are ripped apart, whether temporary or indefinitely. Women are forced to leave behind both husbands and sons. Burdening the infrastructure of the towns and cities to which they are displaced. Consequently, those men bold and brave who turn into soldiers then heroes, bring back unforgettable memories to which their hearts dismay, as not only are battles won, but lives are lost. The images they retain in their memory haunt them for all the years that follow, Tim O’Brien scripted the images scarred in his memory ‘Ambush’ a tale of a man who is ashamed of his actions, and will forever live in guilt.
No matter how hard he tries to forget it, it will always be there; lingering in the back of his mind from the moment the incident first took place to when he returned home to his little girl in which the story is told to, knowing that her father writes war stories, she asks him if he has ever killed anyone. Tim replies “no” until he knew she was old enough to finally hear the story and understand his actions. He could have let the man pass unharmed and that there was no real danger, but the harsh world of war tricks the mind into thinking everyone’s your enemy. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” (George Orwell), A high percentage of soldiers are being shouted in the face with discriminating comments to which it feels like they are being looked down upon in their countries society for doing a duty for another nation, but this does not mean that their nationality is lost. They stick with the same colours that lay on their flag; because it’s the colours that dominate the rest is “just a piece of cloth that brings a nation to its knees” (John Agard ‘Flag’) When is war ever justifiable? The easy answer would be if it was started in self defensive, however, is it wrong to say its morally wrong to fight over your freedom and equality? So surely a war started over ethical issues is justified too? War would protect the lives of many civilians such as the UK fighting in Afghanistan will help prevent terrorist attacks. ‘Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience’ (The Dalai Lama)
It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. – Andre Gide But are the negative effect of war is smaller than the effect of not going to war?
Pros (war can never be justified) What would you die for? Your friends and family? Endless supply of clean water for the world? Or to end a war? Is anything truly worth dying for? However this can only be hypothetical speaking as even if you did die, you wouldn’t be able to solve world peace, but besides sacrificing yourself, is there anything you would kill for? The idea that the violence we perpetrate may not be justified has become one hell of a sore spot in the modern consciousness. The lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq was plagued by questions of justification, and is still haunted by them today. After all, Baghdad is now the most dangerous city in the world. The Iraq Family Health Survey has shown an increase in the percentage of violent deaths in Iraq between the years 2002 and 2006 from 10.5% before the invasion to 23.2% after the invasion. The modern day war in Iraq is an example of a present day war to which human rights groups from U.S and U.K both struggle to find a justification for it.
Iraq (We’re in the wrong country. We should have gone into Iran or Syria.)
WW1 (Sheer, tragic stupidity. Those responsible for this war and the monstrous Treaty of Versailles
(ending?) The closest you can get to the problems of modern conflict is
journalists that risk their own lives in the conflict zone to bring us the breaking news. “There is no reason to give yourself up anymore.” The humiliations and torture practiced in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay have brought fates worse than death back into the centre of conflict, and it is no longer just the other side who look like the bad guys. “Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too”~John Lennon We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living. – General Omar Bradley
