Fisk: Final Proof that War is About the Failure of the Human Spirit

I don't think I follow your reasoning or the reasoning of the author re: war and the failure of the human spirit. To me, the italicized story you posted is a testament to the human spirit. A man giving his time to try to save the lives of people whom he does not know, while not knowing the fate of his own family.

I left this awful hospital to find the American shells falling in the river outside. I noticed, too, some military tents on a small patch of grass near the hospital's administration building and – "God damn it," I said under my breath – an armored vehicle with a gun mounted on it, hidden under branches and foliage. It was only a few meters inside the hospital grounds. But the hospital was being used to conceal it. And I couldn't help noticing the name of the hospital. Adnan Khairallah had been President Saddam's minister of defense, a man who allegedly fell out with his leader and died in a helicopter crash whose cause was never explained

I also cannot figure out if he is saying that this was an Iraqi military vehicle or American (based on all accounts I would guess Iraqi).

 

I am not sure you really value life yourself; you may claim you do but it's hard to say.

From hundreds of posts you wrote and tens of threads you started, it's clear that you are a talker, not a doer; a quote-er, not a thinker. However, that is not the problem.

While you dwell on the carnage of the war, you are oblivious to the butchery of tyrants. While you quick to point fingers at past mistakes of US, a democracy, you are strangely silent about the atrocity of totalitarian regimes. While you hammer away all the imperfections of US society, where people can vote to change government every four years, you are turning your back to the plights of oppressed people, who do not have the means to topple the despots themselves. While you demand every US foreign policy to be morally perfect and free of self-interest, you are totally ignoring the reality of global politics.

I can only conclude that you are into self-loathing, not life saving.

 

Fisk values some people's lives a little more than others.

 

A Fisk article that doesn't include an anti-Israeli rant? Wow, is that a first?

 

Or it could be that Fisk values any life the same way, this does annoy those that value some ppl's lives (or some ppl's rights) more than others.

 

Silly. Sorry Sardinia, but I value a lot of people more than you. Including members of my family. I'm sure you feel the same.

But are you speaking about the people that wanted the US to leave Iraq alone so Hussein could continue to kill his own? After all, it's really none of our business right?

 

New day. same crap.

Attention class, by a show of hands, how many of you are pro-life?

Let's see, 59 of 60. Well, Donna we all hope you're feeling a little less suicidal tomorrow.

Attention class, by a show of hands, how many of you are pro-war? Not this specific war, but war in general?

Let's see aganin, 59 of 60. Well, Adolph we all hope you're feeling a little less aggressive tomorrow.

For the 100,000th time,

Some people would go on with diplomacy with a dictator who had no regard for his own people, ad nauseum.

Some people won't.

Noone wants to see civilians and children hurt.

 

Yankee, Ben understands perfectly what I mean.

We're talking about Fisk's articles on Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Obviously you have some issues with me, and I invite you to PM me and we can discuss them.
But your shot at me doesn't answer my question. Valuing human life has nothing to do with the human spirit. He makes no points in his article to back up a failure of human spirit, if anything, the story of the doctor is a testament to it. If he wanted to call it something along the lines of "The Travesties of War" or "The Faces of War," then I might see the title as appropriate, but the present one is not. Look past your obvious dislike for me and tell me why this article is appropriatly titled.

 

Universal's jockey shorts yanked down around his ankles yet again. Don't you EVER get tired of being the class doormat??

 

Dreaming out loud again, huh?

 

If we lived in a world of saints, the preaching of Gandhi/King would be the norm of the society. Hey, even utopian ideas like communism may actually work great.

However, that is not reality. Face it, to make the best out of an imperfect (not horrible!) world is a reasonable thing to do. If you don't believe that, keep posting away and see how far it will get you.

 

It's not that I condone facism. Or any ism for that matter. Isms, in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon "I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me." Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus, but I'd still have to bum rides off of people.

 

The author of the article made his point: "that war is about the total failure of the human spirit."

If "human spirit" means to avoid war by all means to resolve conflicts between nations, to avoid innocent casualites because military conflicts always result in lose of lives, then yes there was a total failure of it.

But at this point, it's clear that Bush administration is not shy to use force and violence to export his version of human spirit - "might makes right". This world now is brought back 100 years in history - it truly is a sad event.

Iraqis' lives may now be better off under American's rule, I have no doubt. But it is still not the right way to bring about political changes - isn't that using violence to bring about social changes the commie way that the American ideal always condemned? So when the commies did it, they were wrong; when Bush did it, he's right?

Someone needs to explain that to me.

 

The intellectual exercise of proper human behavior has outpaced actual behavior for thousands of years. For example, the concepts from Gandhi/King had already been proposed, debated and even tried thousands of years ago. However, the "situations" weren't right for those concepts in ancient times. Nowadays the evolution of human behavior is a lot close to some of the concepts, because people learn from history (warfare and the consequences), the advent of communication technologies (so more and more folks can understand there are more commonalties than differences between different peoples/cultures/religions), etc. However, even after all these years of evolution, the human race is still not perfect; it become in general much more civilized and tolerant, but still far from altruistic (and it'll probably never be totally). That is the reality I was talking about.

The right thing to do is to help the evolution process along, such as supporting US democracy not dictators. US democracy is not perfect but it's in the right direction compared to totalitarian regimes. Criticisms of US democracy are perfectly fine in order to make it better. However, if you become totally idealistic and obsessive, you would come across unreasonable and extreme, so you are not really helping the evolution to the right direction.

I hope it's clear. It's up to you to do the right thing. Remember things and thinking always change over a long, long period of time, and we are still a way to go.

 

You say so much without really saying anything at all. Can you put your "thoughts" on tape, lately I've needed something to help put me to sleep, and I think your ramblings will help me out.

 

What are you smoking?

 

The whole problem with this thread is that a failure of the human spirit assumes a general propensity for humans to be good in order for this "failure" to occur.

 

By being totally idealistic and self-righteous, you are NOT helping our human race to become better. That is the bottom line (this whole thread is providing the proof). I definitely do not give up our current generation; there are so many good things can be achieved. However, I am giving up on you. Cheers!