The Web of War

When the word war is mentioned, at least in the western world these days, the most common reaction is one of anger. Anger generated by the fiasco that led to the current war going on – the war in Iraq. People are upset at the audacity of those in government to make, take and execute decisions concerning the well-being of men, women and children with impunity and without regard for opinion of members of the public by whose mandate they were put in office to begin with. In other words, the majority of people associate war with the abuse of power.

So what exactly is war? What is the cause of war and how can it be prevented? Contrary to popular perception, war isn’t just conflict. War is extreme conflict that has the sole purpose of subduing an adversary using the most lethal means necessary with a high probability of ending in the cessation of life – in other words, death. This is the definition of war stripped down to its barest essence. Ignore the glamorised version fed to us by those in power that purports war to be a necessary tool that can be used to bring about peace, justice and growth. This is utter nonsense. Nothing, no action, can justify the taking of life. We do not have the power or the ability to create life and therefore we do not have the right to take it. Yes, modernization has provided mankind with the tools to understand how to put together the right conditions to aid the manifestation of life – organic or inorganic. History tells us that mankind has been unable to escape the tantalising bewitchment of war despite its best intentions. There always seems to be a new war brewing around the corner. A good example is the war by the United States led coalition in Iraq that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives since its inception. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives since the conflict that started out as a self appointed, almost messianic mission to oust against Saddam Hussein from power went underway. The war in Bosnia-Herzegovina between the Serbs, Croats and Muslims which claimed of hundreds of thousands of lives in the early 1990’s with many more millions displaced from their homes and villages is another example of the horror of war. The same scenario was repeated in Kosovo in the late 1990’s. Rwanda, 1994, in one of the most bloody and shameful episodes in African history, Hutus wiped out 800,000 Tutsis in just 100 days! The killings were carried out for the most part with machetes attesting to the depths of savagery the human being is capable of sinking to.

And the reason for all these wars; petty arguments, territorial disputes or simply the rabid desire of a few fanatical individuals to willingly push through the implementation of their grandiose ideas without care of consequences. All these reasons seem benign when compared to the damage they cause. The resulting loss of lives that follows just doesn’t seem commensurate to the trifling nature of the events that led to them in the first place. The sad thing is that most humans that get caught up in war realise this and yet seem powerless to stop the rush of the tide.

And so we have our answer. War is caused by the greed of men who lust after power and consolidation of territorial rights, business rights and any other perceived right that promotes the placement of the self and or individual identity above all others. The combination of such individuals with government makes for an extremely lethal cocktail that can only have one result – conflict. When human beings on opposing sides of a conflict engage with the intention of bringing death to the enemy, a line is crossed that vanishes on the act of crossing. It becomes impossible to find ones way back. One has no option but to keep on fighting to the end. This is the web of war. This line is not a physical line marked out on the ground that can be erased and redrawn at will, it is a line that exists within the self. It is marked out in the mind by choice and conscience. And once marked cannot be undone for the simple reason that the track gets hidden by the deluge of mental trauma and emotional upheaval within the self that results from the chaos of conflict. This is the reason why war, the taking of human life can never be justified – no matter how well intentioned.

How can war be stopped? Well, we know that human nature being what it is, is still saddled with the less desirable traits of greed, lust for power and servitude to consumerism. Consequently there will always be conflict. But conflict is not war. Knowing that there is a trap is the first step in evading it. To prevent or rather, to reduce the probability of war occurring to a minimum, the tools of war must be removed from play. The G8 nations must immediately cease the production and distribution of the instruments of death, i.e. weapons. The G8 nations must also engage in the destruction of all its arsenal of weapons. If the flow of weapons is interrupted and stopped, war will cease. People will be forced to come to the table and negotiate terms amicably. A man who has lost members of his family to the evils of an on-going war is unlikely to come to the table to negotiate because he doesn’t know how. In his bid to exact revenge and justice, the emotional and mental trauma of losing his loved ones will have erased the passage of his crossing in his conscience. So that he is unable to find his way back no matter how much a part of him desires to.

The question then becomes: how feasible is it for the G8 economies to cease production and distribution of weapons? The reality today is that the global weapons industry is a thriving multi-trillion dollar industry that provides job opportunities for millions of people. This being the case the G8 economies are unlikely to scrap it for fear of falling into an economic black hole. Such a move would more than likely trigger a domino effect that could herald a period of economic depression from which it would be difficult to recover.

And so we come full circle – a vicious circle. To stop the cycles of never ending wars humanity must first re-examine its understanding of the meaning and purpose of economy. It must decide if it is willing to pay the price that will result from abolishing the production and distribution of weapons. It must do this or risk consigning itself to the scrap heap of creation.