The Hellhole of War

 

Like it or not, war is about death and killing.  Sugarcoat it and all it does is make killing sweeter.  Yet some politicians.statesman try to make it sound like surgery, getting rid of a cancer.It would be nice if war was that simple. 

For centuries people have been killing each other in any manner or form available to them.  The desired end result was to kill someone or groups of some ones.

Fold staple, spindle and mutilate is what the armies were about.  Kill more people then they could kill.  Chop them to pieces, leave the dead lying for the varmints to dine on them.

Yet we glorify some of these killing monsters.  The Visigoths were probably some of nastiest people when it came to war.  Yet they are featured in a commercial for a bank credit card.  These nasty goths were one of the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Empire. 

Out of the north these predators raged, pi;;aging villages, destroying them, burnt to the ground.  Raping the women, to the victors go the spoils, enslaving some of the children.   All others, were decapitated, mutilated or destroyed in some manner.  For these tactics, the Visigoths became very feared. These deadly reputation became their trademark and people would flee in the advance of these terrors.

The Ottomans tried to conquer the world but did not have much success in Eastern Europe.  When the Turks began their northward advance they met some Hungarians, led by a Prince called Vlad.  The first wave of the Turks was repulsed.  Seeing that the Ottomans were regrouping, Vlad order his soldiers to gather up all the Turks they could find.  All these Turks were impaled on a stake and mounted across the path of the advancing Turks.

When the advancing Ottoman army came on their countrymen impaled on stakes they fled and went back to Turkey.  Vlad’s plan had worked.  Over 30,000 Turks had been impaled and mounted on a vast plain.  It was a great intimidation and the Turks left them alone.

To gloss over war, loses lots of its impact.  The idea is to win and lots of the early tribes understood that the nastier they were the easier it became for them to overrun other tribes.  Their reputation preceded them.  They wanted to leave bodies strewn around, mutilated, decapitated, dead women and children.  The uglier the scene the more feared they became.

There was a tribe in the SW US that preyed on others.  When they need goods or supplies they raided neighboring tribes, stealing their food, clothing and animals.  What ever they needed they took.  The women were raped and often became sex slaves.  Today the Navajos are regaled as being a peace loving group of Indians.  Yet they did very little work but go on raiding sorties of other Indian tribes.  Even today they are a very aggressive people and are still feared by some of their neighboring Indians.  Yet they had a reputation that others feared.

It is this very thing that the terrorists base their style on, fear.  They also show disdain for others for there have been no severe consequences for them to be afraid of.  Until there becomes some consequences the terrorists fear, they will continue to operate as they have.  Until they fear us, they will not leave us alone.

It is a hard choice, one many do not want to make.  They continue to sit under the mushroom and gloss things over.

Then if we are going to war, be willing to go to war,  people will be killed, that is what war is all about.