war is stupid (as well as immoral)

Picasso's "Guarnica"

War is state-sanctioned murder on a mass scale!

Every gun,bomb,tank,and battleship that is made takes away from a human being who needs food,education,medical care,etc. Every dollar spent on the weapons of war is stolen from other more worthy causes toward wch it should have been applied to alleviate social injustice and human suffering and improve the quality of human life.

Instead of training a soldier to "kill and be killed" he could be taught some constructive employment skills that could benefit humanity

In 2008 the nations of the world spent 1.5 trillion dollars on weapons! --all of wch is immensely wasteful of the earth's resources!( apart from the horrendous suffering that such weapons inflict)

(43% of global military expenditure is spent by the USA---this is 6X more than China wch is second)

A simple cost/benefit analysis readily demonstrates that the fiscal and human costs of war far outweigh any possible benefit to a society.

There are two parties(war profiteers) with a vested interest in initiating and prolonging a state of war:

(1) the military -industrial complex who make the armaments/weapons of war/military hardware,and who promote military action and the glorification of war (the warmongers) ,and the military career professionals) Arms dealers (the suppliers of weapons) fuel armed conflict!
see the movie:Lord of War (2005)An arms supplier  confronts the morality of his work as he is being chased by an Interpol agent. Directed by Andrew Niccol. Starring Nicolas Cage,
After 9/11 , funding for the intelligence bureaucracy was doubled!,there was a buildup of weaponry, and two wars drained the US treasury, and squandered the country's resources.

(2)the executive branch of the government and it's associated military "defence"departments(e.g.Pentagon, CIA, NSA,etc.) becuz the constitution gives them more power in the event of war!
If the constitution can be suspended in times of war,what laws (if any) are those in power bound by?!
What incentive is there for those in power to adhere to the constitutional constraints (those laws enshrined in the constitution) if they can acquire more power by declaring a de facto state of war/emergency/threat to national security.
An ongoing state of war allows for a de facto declaration of "martial law" or rule by the military (military rulership).
The president is just the president; but the president as "commander-in-chief  "  is imbued with extraordinary powers. War permits the concentration of power in the presidency.
Seizing "emergency" powers allows those who hold the reigns of power to disregard the principles of democracy as well as civil rights.
The government gives itself the power to listen to every telephone conversation and to read every email message.
 When you have an immense military apparatus (the war machine),you can't just have them sitting around with nothing to do. You have to justify their existence-- you have to find a reason for war!

What? No wars to fight? Surely we can do something about dat!!
see "falsely led to war"

see   William D. Hartung's 'Prophets of War' wch could have carried an alternate title that sounds the same but carries a different spelling: Profits of War.
When is the use of military force morally justifiable?  and when is the cost of peace too high?
Making the case for the use of military force.

We should not minimize the criminality of war, for in every instance it violates the sanctity of life!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34360743/ns/politics-white_house/

Obama gives lip service to the value of proactive nonviolent peace activities, citing Ghandi and King, but then concludes that not taking military action is tantamount to inaction::
“I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”

It is my thought, however, that for a fraction of the cost (financial, political, environmental, social, moral) of our military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, we could have undertaken nonviolent proactive humanitarian peace-building activities that would have left us with real friends in a genuinely improved world.

This, in contrast to the destruction, misery, anguish, hostility, heightened volatility, heightened polarization and heightened animosity that have been the natural, logical, and predictable consequences of policies of fear,hatred and violence.

see "the normalization of violence"

 I agree with the president that peacemaking calls for sacrifice, but why should we think, and be willing to accept, that the only sacrifice we can make, or could have made, for peace, is military action?

Worth Green, Seabrook

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U.S. Military recruitment poster:

Having trouble finding a job.

Uncle Sam is hiring!

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to serve your country.

You just have to be willing to die!

P.S. The following job benefits are included: free body bag and funeral ,and your name permanently chiseled on a cenotaph as an eternally honoured hero.
And if you don't like that option ,there's free prostheses and psyhiatric services for a lifetime!

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The first casualty of war is Truth!  --WikiLeaks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101024/ts_afp/usiraqmilitaryinternetwikileaks_20101024102337

http://www.thirdage.com/news/wikileaks-released-iraq-documents-reveal-truth_10-24-2010

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NThe White Poppy symbolises the belief that there are better ways to resolve conflicts than killing strangers. Our work, primarily ehttp://members.shaw.ca/peacepoppies/du chttp://www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/index.html ational, draws attention to many of From economic reliance on arms sales (Britain is the world's second largest arms exporter) to maintaining manifestly useless nuclear weaweapo9 years after the end of the ‘war to end all wars’ we still have a long way to go to put   If we really want to abolish the military and all that goes with it, we must first abolish the last remaining  justification for it in the eyes of the general public - I

Wear a White Poppy...

• to commemorate all victims of war
• to mourn the environmental devastation
  it causes
• to reject war as a tool for social change
• to call for dialog and peaceful conflict resolution
• to show your commitment to building a
  better future

...Because Remembering is Important,
But it Isn't Enough

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War requires a lot of preparation--the most important of wch is preparing the minds of the people!

The creation of an "enemy" is a commonly used political strategy for diverting attention from internal problems by focusing attention externally upon a designated "other"

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One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing;

 that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)