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TechnoratiOver the past 5,600 years, historians estimate that 14,600 wars have been waged. In the twentieth century alone, over 100 million people were killed in wars all over the world although some atrocitologists figure that as many as 258,327,000 people died from massacres, slaughters, oppressions, and famines that resulted from or preceded these wars. This latter figure reflects the calculation the Lancet Report made when it said that 655,000 Iraqis had died since the United States invaded their country in 2003.
Given history's record and the current state of affairs in Iraq, it might be time for us to admit that war is normal, peace is not, and that we as a human race are committed to war no matter the cost. Unfortunately, this view is nothing new. The ancient Greeks saw war not only as the natural order of things but as the inevitable: the clashing of forces offered the possibility of a new creation in the world. Shortly after the end the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, a revolution ostensibly based on reason and scientific truth as an alternative to faith and belief, Immanuel Kant conceded that: "The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state; the natural state is one of war." And now, when terrorism and weapons of mass destruction serve as ways of solving conflict, James Hillman suggests in his book, A Terrible Love of War, that as brutal and ugly as war is, it remains one of the most meaningful and transcendent experiences for its survivors because of its appeal to the warrior within. Perhaps a look at who this warrior is will help us understand our apparent attraction and disposition toward war so that we can deal with it before it destroys us.
According to Jungian psychology, the warrior is an archetype, which is an idealized role or identity embedded in our cultural narratives that guides our minds and actions. Archetypes have a mythic quality that bid us to act out a particular role for certain situations automatically. One of these roles is the warrior, the one who overcomes an enemy to protect his homeland and save his people. We easily recognize him; he is the Lone Ranger, Batman, Superman, and Captain Kirk.
The reason why the warrior is one of the most powerful of all the archetypes is because war itself is so pervasive and the human will to survive is such a key instinct. As a result, war moves the warrior to place himself in danger and call upon his courage, skill, and intelligence to endure conditions of discomfort, pain, suffering, even death.
Michael Gurian illustrates the values and traditions of warriorhood in The Prince and the King. For example, the warrior must always believe that he is fighting a just cause to preserve his society, fellow warriors and himself and that what he does matters to those who send him to war. The warrior is also trained to promote dignity and honor to himself and his opponents. He realizes that his first priority is to protect life and not destroy it. Consequently, he understands that although he may be forced to kill, he is deliberate and knows the boundaries of killing, i.e., he does not slaughter or engage in total or random destruction of his opponent.
As noble as the warrior is, he has a flip side called the shadow warrior. Robert Moore in The Warrior Within, describes the shadow warrior as the one who betrays truth, forsakes honor, follows [or gives] immoral orders, propagates policies based upon falsehoods or ignorance and fosters blind patriotism or allegiance. The shadow warrior typically disregards human suffering without the need to alleviate it, confronts all threats without regard for violence, and hungers for victory or power and disguises it as a pursuit of moral and spiritual principles.
The shadow warrior is "a twisted version of warriorhood that comes from an immature psyche still trying to prove itself in a world it fears," says Ed Tick, author of War and the Soul and a Jungian psychoanalyst who has been working with Vietnam veterans with PTSD since 1978—and now sees Iraq and Afghanistan vets. He characterizes the shadow warrior as having a "lack of control of aggression, insensitivity to relatedness, desire for vengeance, enjoyment of carnage and cruelty, scorn toward the vulnerable, hostility toward the feminine and everything soft, and compulsive [with] workaholic tendencies."
Given our government's performance in the post-9/11 era, it has become especially obvious that the shadow warrior has seeped itself into America. Torture for prisoners has been approved. Habeas corpus has been suspended. Spying on Americans through their telephone records has been authorized. Brave men and women who were sent to Iraq based on lies and deceptions are now stuck in Iraq with no end in sight. And now the Congress has approved yet another $100 billion in "emergency funding."
War in the 21st century has already presented the world with some gruesome questions about how soldiers fight and for what cause. So far, we have seen a "scorched earth policy" that prefers annihilation over negotiation and a curtailment of human rights, including those of very citizens who are supposed to be protected from their enemies. The survival of humanity is also more apparent as more lethal weapons have enabled all too easily both governments and individuals (i.e., the terrorists) to commit genocide and potential planetary suicide.
On this Memorial Day, let us recognize the honor, dignity and truth of the real warriors and realize how easily the shadow warrior can overtake us. Let us also be clear that our government is not going to stop these wars. In a real democracy, only the people can do that. The question is: are we up to it?
Olga Bonfiglio is a professor at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and author of Heroes of a Different Stripe: How One Town Responded to the War in Iraq. She has written for several national magazines on the subjects of religion and social justice. Her website is www.OlgaBonfiglio.com and she may be contacted at olgabonfiglio@yahoo.com.
38 Comments so far
Show AllHonor Our Fallen by Remembering All Those Fallen 'Foreigners'.
published by CounterCurrents: http://www.countercurrents.org/janson270507.htm earlier by OpEdNews
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_jay_jans_070524_honor_our_fallen...
Let's make Memorial Day be inclusive of non-Americans fallen in American wars.
On our very American Memorial Day, as we remember fallen family and friends, let us be careful lest any tears in our eyes be selective.
Let our remembrance and compassion not be limited to our own. In our space age of instant communication, there is a growing awareness of one planetary humanity sharing our single world and its resources.
Let us remember that the non-American families and friends of non-Americans who have died in American wars have the exact same painful feelings of loss and bewilderment.
The millions of Indochinese killed by our fellow Veterans also bring tears to my eyes.
A million Koreans, thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghan women and children - every one of them is worth remembering on Memorial Day as well. Maybe even more so, because they died in their own country, most in their own towns, and many in their very own homes.
I surely want to remember those fellow veterans who gave their lives. But I believe the sincere American will want to remember everyone who died in these many foreign wars,including the 'foreigners'.
Life has taught this seventy-year-old veteran to reserve my deepest compassion for those of us veterans who followed immoral orders, and didn't have the presence of mind or education to refuse to follow those orders. Like the poor pilot who dropped an atomic bomb incinerating almost a million civilians in Hiroshima, and went half-crazy afterward. He did not serve his country well, nor the cause of freedom, and certainly not his own human conscience.
I have compassion for Veteran, now Senator, McCain who flew 29 bombing missions knowing that Eisenhower had written in his book that if there were an all Vietnam election (blocked by the US) that Ho Chi Minh would have won by a plurality of more than 80%. But McCain was just following military orders like an unthinking automaton.
Compassion for a Veteran and presidential candidate, John Kerry, who said he killed South Vietnamese before realizing it was wrong.
Compassion for former Governor, Senator, now President of New School University, Bob Kerrey, who on "60 Minutes" was exposed by his own point man of having had his Seals gun down 19 young women and children, after seeing to the throat cutting of an elderly man and his family, compassion for his having accepted a medal for doing it, under the report of 'enemy' successfully killed.
Did these three now highly placed Americans serve us when they killed? They all had a college education, which must have included a history of colonialism, especially the brutality of French colonial subjugation of the Vietnamese. They must have known that Ho Chi Minh was decorated by our OSS as a dedicated ally of ours against the Japanese and Vichy French. They must have known that Truman, against Roosevelt's promise, had brought the French army back in US ships to fight an 8-year war against our former allies, the Vietnamese. All this, because Ho Chi Minh was a communist? I don't think so. A top cabinet minister of our ally, the French government was also a communist, but that was OK.
My heart goes out more to these famous American fellow Veterans more than for those Indochinese peasants they killed. The dead -- especially those who died innocently-- they must be free now. They are honored by their relatives, and any compassion from us for the Vietnamese comes horribly late and is even suspect.
Six of my bunkmates in basic training are buried in North Korea. I can shed tears for them, they were young men - they wanted to live just as all the Korean relatives of my Korean students would have rather lived than die in a war over the economic confrontation of our country with the Soviet Union.
Veterans who loved their country enough to know what the fighting was about are one thing. Veterans who gave their lives fighting for injustice and against human respect, blindly following a leader are quite another.
The world has become increasingly complicated and yet our corporate conglomerate cartel of a mass entertainment media has become increasingly reductive, simplistic and antidemocratic, and I have compassion for those who work to make war acceptable, even attractive to their audiences.
Right now the news is filled with people who will someday become veterans like Lieutenant Calley of Mai Lai fame. They tortured in the name of freedom, of democracy maybe, of truth, or even God.
Or maybe they were just having fun. Now when they are discharged and officially become veterans, I will shed some tears for them, for the Karma they have put on their souls and the danger they have put us all in as retribution is sought in the name of their victims.
I once asked the guard in the rotunda of the Russian Veterans Monument in Berlin if there was anywhere a monument to the fallen German soldiers who fought the Russians and Americans. "No", he answered, "they were fighting for the wrong reason."
My tears go out to those of all countries who fought for the wrong reason and for the flags which they dishonored.
Shuttering anguish is what I feel for the leaders who knowingly sent them to kill (and die, though dying is less tragic than wrongly killing) for a wrong cause.
Actually, tears of joy come to my eyes quite easily when I see the newsreel of Mohammed Ali proudly saying that he would not participate in an unjust war against the Vietnamese. History will show that Ali is a veteran of that war as much as those who participated in the violence of genocidal terrorism. Ali had the courage to stand up for an honest America.
Very Sincerely on Memorial Day!
Your American Veteran
Jay Janson, who was during eight years, Assistant Conductor of the Vietnam Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi and on tour playing all the Brahms symphonies, and Beethoven, Prokovieff, Shostakovitch, Haydn, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, dozens of Overtures and concertos including both Chopin concertos with the only Asian winner of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, Dan Tai-son, who practiced for it in a Hanoi bomb shelter. The orchestra was founded by Ho Chi Minh, and it plays most of its concerts in the Opera House, a diminutive copy of the Paris Opera. In 1945, our ally Ho, from a balcony overlooking the large square and flanked by an American Major and a British Colonel, declared Vietnam independent. (By the way the little hotel, where I stayed in the 90s, lay just across from our American Embassy in Hanoi, and the Ambassador was just so happy to be arranging business contracts with the same government our Veterans died trying to defeat, by killing as many of their patriot soldiers and volunteers as possible.) Everyone in the orchestra lost family, "killed by the Americans", they would mention simply, with Buddhist un-accusing acceptance.
Again, happy Memorial Day, and lets dedicate it to contemplating investigating wars in memory of those who died in them. Life is too beautiful and brief to kill it off early, and stop the music.
PPS On a positive and humane Memorial suggestion:
Nothing could be better to honor our fellow veterans' having given their lives, than to turn this nation around into morality and honesty, and forgoing pompous and ridiculous attempts to praise ourselves indiscriminately, announce our intention to arrange compensation to Vietnam War survivors of our now admitted 'MISTAKE'!
That would impress the whole world, and gain the next president some moral high ground for leadership of this nation.
The current compensation 'sympathy payment' for wrongful death of innocent Iraqis who file complaints with the US led Coalition Government is about US $6,000, according to a report published in the Christian Science Monitor in March, 2006.
Put ourselves in their shoes. The shoes of Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Iraqi and Afghan bereaved families. Could we even imagine such bombings upon US towns and countryside? We can improve the whole world and ourselves with such imagination.
Jay Janson in New York City
A senior US military investigator describing the view all along the US chain of command: "Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business...". (Josh White, 'Report On Haditha Condemns Marines,' Washington Post, April 21, 2007).
That's exactly the point. I am not a diplomat and never have been! We are fed up being nice to you people and your cultures, etc. And I know this is supposedly a “liberal, anti-war siteâ€, but it really means nothing to us, for you and your allies simply have too much blood on your hands for forgiveness (not that most Northerners would even for one minute contemplate that). Only this time “YOUR†pile of corpses is getting out of hand, thus the nation that so vehemently voted Mr. Bush the second time around (after all the crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, etc. I must add) is suddenly growing “anti-warâ€. Only, you are not really anti-war; you are against a war when the tide turns against you and “your†casualties start multiplying. Sadly, you are fooling no one but yourselves.
Every minute, each day we are paying the price for your criminal, Fascist regimes and bloodthirsty, maniacal troops due to the so-called "voter inaction" or the silent approval, a much better term, by you narcissists in the North that cost our brethren, women and children lives, suffering, torture, and mayhem. My side said goodbye to being kind, diplomatic, and other nonsense a long time ago. We have seen the napalms, cluster bombs, tortured and violated bodies way too often. Your freakish bastardly right-wing zealots, ironically, have gotten it right for once! WE ARE AT A HEMISPHERIC WAR.
The lines have been drawn through centuries of your crimes, and hell we are sick of you. You have declared war on us and nothing can turn the clock back. I love physics: "for every action, there's a reaction equal and as DEADLY AND RUTHLESS"!! Sorry Newton, it's my version.
And you know what, I lived most of my life in the decadent North; now, if you have successfully!! radicalized me to this point, fathom the rest. You can still imagine, can't you "peace-loving" Calvinist, McCarthyist patriot??? Await us, (w/ your cruises or w/out) you self-appointed, civilized rulers of the planet!!!!!!!
JerryfromTijuana,
Your despicable blind nationalism is exactly the epitome of the Fascist Empire you represent!! My factual writing was explanatory enough, but will the retarded, bloodthirsty, Nazi filth that the U.S. and its allies have become, get the point? NEVER!!!
Your solution has been explained quite well in my piece. Swallow it and like it!!!!!!!Death to the Yank, and whatever she/he stands for!!!!!
Poll of the Islamic Countries
Respondents overwhelmingly described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked, biased," said Gallup editor-in-chief Frank Newport.
"The people of Islamic countries have significant grievances with the West in general and with the United States in particular," he said.
Eradicate things, not people. People can be rehabilitated.
Well, most people -- some will never live long enough to pay for their crimes.
"The American right is a fascist party…. Hmmm, Guantanamo must be full of MILLIONS of Americans who very loudly criticize Bush. Right??"
Let's not talk about MILLIONS of Americans. Let's just talk about 1--Jose Padilla. He is an American Citizen. He has been held for years without the right to see a lawyer. He has been tortured and accused of crimes for which no proof has been shown.
If the President can do this to 1 person, he can do it to any of us.
You are an right-wing moron. Have you ever read the Constitution? Do you even know what the words "Habeus Corpus" mean and why they are so fundamental to our Republic?
The right has become Fascist. You believe GOD and Jesus are Republicans. You think the Flag only belongs to Republicans. You call all Liberals traitors. The worst, you are unable to critically think about anything. If it falls out of Bush's mouth you believe it.
What America needs is another Civil War. You right-wing yahoos need to be eradicated.
"jaded prole, are you saying that it was a waste to have warriors “protect†us from Adolf Hitler and Tojo from 1941 to 1945."
Though Hitler and Tojo never threatened to attack us directly,(Pearl Harbor was a foreign outpost at the time) I'm glad our soldiers opted to defend us against fascism. Unfortunately their leaders from Truman on adopted the fascism the many fought and died to defend us from in the name of anti-communism. WWII was an exception in our history of totally unesessary wars and still we were sold out.
"Incidentally, how come I never see this hatred for America on right wing sites? Or people apologizing to the America haters?"
Because the American right has become a fascist party. They offer no criticism of the President, who is worshiped like a dictator.
What you call "hatred" is actually called critical thinking. And, you're right, that's never to be found on "right wing sites."
"Personally, I don’t particularly like the word “warrior,â€
but if we agree that there is a need for defenders, why shouldn’t we be grateful to those who risk their lives to protect someone."
Indeed we should! But one who protects is a far cry from "warrior" worship. Our "warriors" have not had to protect us from invasion since 1812.
"If we accept that war is the natural order of things, then we should also accept that murder and armed robbery is as well. A desperate man who robs a liquor store and kills it’s occupants in order to feed his family is justified? Bullshit. All criminals must be brought to justice no matter the scale on which they operate."
You're and a number of others are confused. There is a difference between knowing reality and "loving" its negative aspects.
"The concept and worship of “the warrior†has no place in a civilized society — it must be purged." Postulates are fine,
understanding of reality and human nature are even better.
Personally, I don't particularly like the word "warrior,"
but if we agree that there is a need for defenders, why shouldn't we be grateful to those who risk their lives to protect someone.
Saladin74: I apologize on behalf of my nation; however, the same aggressive force plundering other nations is also doing its thing here at home. Our elections have become smoke and mirrors, our media a fallout system of lies and bullshit. TOO many are not informed, nor does their vote count. This does not excuse the bellicosity of the nation, its greed or false justification for stealing bounty from other less endowed lands, but it does add a bit of background for why and how this is taking place. Our former president Eisenhower noted the degree to which the unscrupulous could profit from war. When the US economy lags, it seems to get a boost from FABRICATING war. There is no greater sin, and the US, as part of the dynamic (a Cancer nation, "born" July 4) will pay a price as the principle of vengeance, portrayed in the LOGOS as Pluto, comes to oppose our nation as it has not for the past 248 years of it orb. All religions believe in ultimate justice, what many term "the law of karma" and that of course holds greater power than the transitory delusions of highly imperfect (and in the US present case, highly deluded) mortal men. The cosmic shit hits the fan just when the Mayans said it would, and interestingly enough, their calendar departs from our own substantially. Short anecdote to suggest the grand case of Divine Order. Years ago while living in Puerto Rico a wealthy designer took me to meet her "espiritista." That is the local medicine man. Using stones (carcoles) he had me mix them and hand them to him and he made a count baesd on which side was up. I saw him scribble down 5 and 8. My name equals 5 and my birthdate equals 8. So by HIS form of more "primitive" technology he arrived at the exact same numbers I did, but cast from a very different methodology. This IS a universe built upon laws... there is gravity, whether we believe in it or otherwise, and little things like water freezing at 32 degrees. Ignorance of Divine law in no way cancels out its effects. We either learn to rebuild peace circles that invite in ALL colors, nations, religions, beliefs or we consign our children and grandchildren to HELL. Richard Bach once said, "If you argue FOR your limitations, you get to keep them."
Cruxpuppy: It's all in the math, cosmic that is! We are conditioned to think in terms of linear categories of reference, this or that, etc. The circle has NO sides and embraces every principle, while using the angular relationships among all positions to check-mate the trespassses of any singular one. Mars is part of human nature, arguably the WORST part. We need Mars to BE individuals, to function as separate egos in the world. Mars gives us the fight or flight syndrome, as well as animating our reproductive urges. It's a strong vital force, BUT it must be held IN its place by the other archetypes. I have argued on this site (and sometimes been slammed, so it's hardly a "fun job") that there are viable AGES that mankind as a collective passes through. The Age of Aries took place during the time of Moses. Aries represents Mars and sees God as the angry, jealous deity that demands blood sacrifices. Jesus came in to bring a new Age and teaching, that of Pisces, the gentle FISHER of men whose mandate was to teach forgiveness. ONLY through forgiveness can that alchemy occur that wipes out the otherwise ungodly compulsion to visit the sins of the fathers upon the sons generation after generation (exactly what Bush the lesser has brought to the Middle East.) The belief in a SINGLE God has subsumed ALL Divine principles into a Mars-like archetype, so that war has become synonomous with belief in God. It's diabolical! I believe the circle is the thing that can save us from these erroneous beliefs. In the circle, Mars position is countered by that of Venus. She sits across from him. Consider this: there are ONLY 2 equinoxes, periods of equal darkness and light. It doesn't get any more poetic than this! Our earth is poetry! It's founded on mathematics that SING in harmony as seen in the Fibonacci series (the space between notes is also seen in structural anatomy of things like trees). The spring equinox signals the rush of life, the time when animals copulate, the mock death of winter (in Northern hemisphere) gives way to renewed life. This is the BEST of Mars... it's polar opposite, the autumn equinox signifies the onset of Libra, ruled by Venus. Venus represents law, art, justice, balance, the individual's social contract with the greater society. Libra is the Zodiac's peacemaker. I find it far more than coincidental that Jesus specifically chose 12 disciples, that Abraham founded 12 tribes and that the zodiac simulates 12 paths of human experience. We need all 12 voices! No singular one has a monopoly on truth, and when any singular perspective (Mars really is the angry white boy with a gun, the warrior OUT of control) takes over, then all hell (as we see so evidently now) breaks loose. While the sun sign designation is only a fragment of the LOGOS, it is significant. John Dean as a LIBRA is the one who courageously stands for justice by exposing the dark heart of his conservative peers. Jimmy Carter as Libra speaks about a more balanced peace initiative in the wounded Middle East. The fact that war rages most in the zone where the patriarchal religions were born is itself telling. Clinton, albeit a LEO, has Libra as his rising sign and several key planets there. Mr. centrist effectively eviscerated our two-party system by merging their interests into one. Sometimes Libra goes too far in seeking middle ground. In coming years wherever we sit on this globe, we are going to endure the effects of a major cosmic crossroads involving the sign of Libra (principles of justice) challenged by those of Capricorn (ruled by Saturn, the sign of the strict father, the fuhrer, the fascist state, and corporate interests/worship of mammon superceding ALL other interests) with the rebel planet Uranus in Aries, sign of war. Expect lots of small wars, or independent groups rebelling against this new age of pharaohs in the guise of global corporations that abide no loyalty oath to persons or nations as they MURDER our collective Eden. Just because serious astrology has been kept out of public discussion since the church murdered its followers centuries ago does not mean that the truths it bears should be kept closeted. It has always amused me that sex is no longer a taboo, but LOOKING up to expand our sense of meaning is! The future is a dance between free will and fated cycles; thus the outcome of the challenges the cosmic factors yet to come suggest is NOT known. OUR intelligence counts into the great mix!
Memorial Day should be to reflect on the shining city oin the hill, America once was, now loathed by much of the planet. (Ironically for years, due to toller coaster propoganda, much of the world thought all Iraqis were Saddam, Now much of the world think all Americans are George Buch.)
Americans should reflect that the Statue of Liberty has been replaced by the images of Guantanamo Bay.
Also that the Navajo Nation, which has no word for 'radiation' in their language, is poisined by it, as they were offered jobs mining uranium and suffer the cancers and birth deformities of all who have come in contact with uranium weapons.
And on Memorial Day America should remember the possible million Iraqis killed in their name in the name of 'liberation' (illegal invasion) the million and a half (probably far more killed by the embargo, a silent holocaust) the destroyed cradle of civilisation, Mesapotamina, humanity's history - and the four million souls they have displaced internally and who have fled their country, family, all that is familiar.
Memorial Day should be to mourn what America has become.A rogue state, a pariah hoping to feed off Iraq's oil and then move on to Iran's.
As for the fallen. SInce this is an illegal war, they then and their colleagues now, have an option. Walk away. 'Obeying orders' did not work ar Nuremburg. This whole excercise is an illegal carnage and like where America started,aim to wupe out the indigenous population.
Read the same for Afghanistan and think gas pipelines, Just google.
Saladin74,
There were at least three serious omissions in your essay. You left out:
(1) the genocide of the Native Americans in the 17th-19th Centuries;
(2) the enslavement of Africans, which not only inflicted suffering on millions but also took the lives of hundreds of thousands before they even reached the North American shores; and
(3) the war on the people of the Philippines of the early 20th Century in which an estimated 800,000 were killed, most of them unarmed, and many by soldiers who were operating under the order of "kill every brown-skinned person over the age of 10."
And you may have intentionally left out the unnecessary use of nuclear bombs and fire-bombing on Japan, I cannot be sure.
If we accept that war is the natural order of things, then we should also accept that murder and armed robbery is as well. A desperate man who robs a liquor store and kills it's occupants in order to feed his family is justified? Bullshit. All criminals must be brought to justice no matter the scale on which they operate.
The "warrior" archetype is part of the military's recruitment propaganda. If war and killing were so "natural," then the brainwashing and degrading that takes place in bootcamp would not be necessary. In the real world (as opposed to the psychological world of archetypes) wars are not started by warriors, but by politicians--those slimy creatures who respond only to self-interest, money, and power. The poor warrior, having forfeited his mind, body, and soul to these fools, is reduced to canon fodder--so much for ideals.
born2bwildsays, "as soon as this country purges it’s military, some other country’s military, not yet purged will be happy to invade."
No one is going to invade us militarily -- they need only conquer us economically -- it's more cost efficient.
annac21 says, "Double BS - general and specific.
Yes, you need sometimes armed defenders."
OK, an army of "defenders" less that 10% the size of our military is adequate to defend our nation -- this could be our national guard.
The concept and worship of "the warrior" has no place in a civilized society -- it must be purged. This is not to say we should not honor our veterans who should have government services to heal their minds and bodies as well as provide for their retraining/education when they return.
"Carl Jung’s notion of an “archetypeâ€, as this commentator seems to understand it, creates a kind of historical determinism - a history of the repetition of certain behaviors creates an archetypal model ( a soldier or a whore, for example) that predisposes future generations to a kind of compulsion to repeat those behaviors. Soldiers have always been with us, soldiers will always be with us."
Can I suggest dropping fancy-schmancy Jung and archetype, using a humble "human nature" instead, and honestly asking yourself: "Is it possible that the humans will stop fighting, competing etc.?" Psychology is fine, but nothing, nothing can replace simple common sense/intelligence.
I know that common sense is out now. When Orwell rules ....
We know that nuclear weapons (or threat of their use) have prevented a number of wars in the second half of the 20th century. Of, course, there is no guarantee for the future.
The third component is the "child warrior", which composes the vast majority of our military, including its upper eschelons. They want to prove themselves in war, save the maiden, look like Bruce Willis, etc. They are the ultimate enabler, because they are the gullible muscle behind the "shadow warrior" class, who are the pissed off psychos.
No, come to think of it, this article is bull; here's how it comes down: We have civilian leadership who are infantile repressives who want to act out Oedipal longing on the world stage. They appeal to the Child Warriors, who are ever-so eager to instigate aggression to prove their ability to preserve, protect, and most of all, SACRIFICE, for their tribe -- becuse the death instinct weight heavily here.
Or something like that. Who knows, they're nutcases, that's for sure. :-(
I once created a drawing in which the acreage of the "Temple on the Mount" had stacked on it coffins of all the religous wars (christen/muslem/hindu etc) fought over that sacrid ground. Using the calculations of 48 cubic feet per coffin and 3.5 milllion dead the stack was 382 feet high. Well above the dome of its famous church. I wish every human born from here onward be required to wade through a large petrid pool of decaying people and puke on their 18th birthday. This is the only way I see to to insure no more wars. Jung was correct under normal conditions, we need to make the conditions abnormal. Honoring the warrior equals thermonuclear extintion of the human race!
WHY DO THEY HATE US SO MUCH?? (the all-time most audacious question asked by supremacist xenophobic Yanks and their Fascist allies)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read that question w/ some whining noise added to it for fun!!!
This is a response from a world citizen to the all-time most naive question I have heard/read so much from the so-called analysts, writers, politicians, and hands of IMPERIALISM in your dishonest media.
In your undying, never-ending hatred for Iran and drowned in an ocean of narcissism, you simply have forgotten, or yet better, chosen to forget, the crimes, inhumane policies, arrogant attitudes, and pain inflicted by you "patriotic" psychos on many a nation, including Persians.
Well, the Northern Christian hypocrisy and self-love on one side; its harsh animosity and blood thirst for Iran is something else. It was evident in your clownish, arrogant President's speeches and now it's epitomized by the most blatantly hateful, Nazi pieces of propaganda which Goebbels himself would love you for ), there it comes, suck it and swallow it w/ AMERICAN (w/ a thick R the way you like it) pride and xenophobia.
By what I have read from the likes of you in your very "OBJECTIVE" media (no shortage in the " objective, informed, and bright" nation of yours), you completely epitomize what the monstrous Northern Christian imperialism means to billions of impoverished, victimized, oppressed masses of the world and what it has done for the past several centuries only in order to secure its own filthy interests derived from your selfish, self-indulged, self-centered, egotistic, materialist, and Calvinist lifestyles and worldviews. If and only if you were interested in the truth and facts, you could easily find the answer by reviewing your friends' list and also crimes' list for decades or centuries (for those Euro liberals!!). It doesn't take a genius, does it?
YOU are the epitome of unfairness, injustice, governmental terrorism and bigotry. These are some of the crimes against humanity committed by your patriotic asses all over the planet (the list would be only too long but I mention a few here):
U.S. sponsored coup against democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed dictatorships over the course of four decades.
U.S. overthrew the governments of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped to murder 3,000 people.
1973, the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile against he democratic government of Salvador Allende and helped to murder another 30,000 people.
1965 the U.S. sponsored a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder of over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over 250,000 innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian regime with the direct complicity of President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
U.S. sponsored terrorist contra war (the World Court declared the U.S. government a war criminal in 1984 for the mining of the harbours) against Nicaragua in the 1980s which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent people (or as the U.S. government used to call them before the term "collateral damage" was invented--"soft targets").
U.S. war against the people of El Salvador in the 1980s, which
resulted in the brutal deaths of over 80,000 people, or "soft targets".
U.S. sponsored terror war against the peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola) that began in the 1970's and resulted in the deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000.
U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas season of 1989 and killed over 5,000 in an attempt to capture George H. Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manual Noriega.
U.S. sponsored a brutal coup that resulted in the deaths of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1978.
This doesn't even mention the crimes in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Bay of Pigs and before that the support for and direct involvement w/ Batista's regime in Cuba, the 8-year war against Iran -including chemical weapons usage- by (the former friend!!) Saddam, death squads in Central America, the 5 decades of Israeli crimes in Palestine and Lebanon (the veto policy), the "missing" in Argentina, and of course the "silent coup" in Algeria in 91 (w/ deceitful cooperation from the French bastards) that stopped the FIS from winning the elections thus plunging the country into a civil war for years................
We can never forget your crimes or undying sense of self-love and ego that make the Yankees and their NATO/G7 lovers the most detested nations on this planet, perhaps galaxy.
Now kill as many innocent people as you want. LAUNCH, LAUNCH as a bastard called JAMES WOODS declared on JAY LENO. Brag about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Beirut bombings. Brag about killing of the innocent family members of Kaddafi, all the countries' leaders and revolutionaries who had the guts to say no to your Fascist Empire.
It matters not. The U.S. (and the British disgusting colonialism) will go where the Romans, German Nazis, Mongols, and the rest of the arrogant sorry excuses for humanity went. Now celebrate killing Moslems, Nationalists, and Leftists (not to mention nuns and priests), etc. in your never-ending fire of hatred, supremacy and ego.
Unlike many other foreigners, I am not simplistic enough to think you are just the minority and the "rest" are simply decent, nice, culture-loving individuals. The fact is it's filth like you that votes for the criminals you call leaders (Reagan and Bushes, Blair, Merkel, Harper and Howard come to mind immediately). Also I don't think, despite the popular belief, you are ignorant or just stupid; I think you know enough and simply choose to ignore because you are the most selfish, inhumane, robotic bastards this planet has seen for a long time. Your sense of "SELECTIVE MEMORY and JUDGMENT" is proof enough.
I think legendary Orwell got it right in this passage from Nineteen Eighty-Four, an account of the ultimate supremacist empire:
"And in the general hardening of outlook that set in . . . practices which had been long abandoned - imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions . . . and the deportation of whole populations - not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive."
As a reaction to your actions, our (the South) hatred for you could only be compared to the feelings we have against Serbs, Nazis, Genghis Khan and Alexander the Criminal.
THE NEW ROME WILL FALL...... AND ITS FOLLOWERS, FRIENDS, ALLIES AND APOLOGISTS..... WE'LL MAKE SURE OF THAT. DEATH TO THE U.S. and EU!!!
Carl Jung's notion of an "archetype", as this commentator seems to understand it, creates a kind of historical determinism - a history of the repetition of certain behaviors creates an archetypal model ( a soldier or a whore, for example) that predisposes future generations to a kind of compulsion to repeat those behaviors. Soldiers have always been with us, soldiers will always be with us.
Be that as it may, military historians recognize that the advent of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction generally, is a watershed event that will forever change the human war-making habit. War as we have known it must become obsolete because the human species confronts the high probability of its own extinction.
We don't really have a choice in the matter of whether to change this historical pattern of behavior. We either change it or we will destroy ourselves and our planet.
The situation is so uncomplicated even George Bush could understand it if it were explained to him. He and his fellow sociopaths believe they can work around this obstacle, though, and "socialize" these nukes, make them more user-friendly, as it were.
If the author wishes to contribute to the survivability of her own species, she can do two things.
1. She can cease her devotion to her Jungian religion and imagine herself as something other than a reactionary conservative...
2...and she can begin to ponder this question - if war is an ineluctable, archetypal, part of human behavior, how have we made it this far? There must be some archetypes of peace and cooperation somewhere in the collective unconscious and one has to say that if there weren't, we would not be here today. Don't limit your human potential, Ms. Bonfiglio, don't give up on human nature. It is far more flexible than it is made out to be.
The fact is you're either for human freedom and a sustainable human culture, or you're for the terrorists and psychopathic war mongers and human extinction.
Can you please stop this male/female garbage?
Everyone who is familiar with American workplace and
Nazi-type female "managers" knows female capabilities.
Similarly, women showed their "talents" in concentrations camps.
By the way, I have a sense that in the past, women were limited to a degree by ... pregnancies.
"As Iraq demonstrates, People can defend and resist without an army."
?????????????????????????????????
Double BS - general and specific.
Yes, you need sometimes armed defenders.
Frankly, I don't know how people can live on this level of BS.
Total ignorance? Limited minds? Pure demagoguery?
liveandlearn,
Maggie Thatcher didn't disappoint, nor did Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria, nor did Katherine the Great. And I would bet my bottom dollar that Hillary wouldn't either. Let's stop the hating. I am sure that if given the opportunity, the women would prove to be every bit as capable in starting and waging war as we are. There is absolutely no reason to believe that women could not make equal or even better killers and warmongers if given the chance.
What the article failed to mention is that of those 14,600 estimated wars throughout history, nearly all of them were started and conducted by men. And that's coming from the mouth (okay fingers) of a man!
"I renounce war. I renounce war because of what it does to our own men...I renounce war because of what it compels us to do to our enemies...I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatreds it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another."- DICK SHEPPARD
I apologize to those who read all the articles on commondreams, but I want to reach as many people as I can. This information has me completely freaked out.
A Presidential Directive was signed by President Bush on May 9th giving him unconstrained powers in case of a national emergency. In the case of a national emergency (terrorist attack), I don't want that psychopath in charge of anything. How can he get away with this? It's terrifying!!!
worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55825
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
President Bush has signed a directive granting extraordinary powers to the office of the president in the event of a declared national emergency, apparently without congressional approval or oversight.
The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive
" was
signed May 9, notes Jerome R. Corsi in a WND column
.
It was issued with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive.
The directive establishes under the office of the president a new national continuity coordinator whose job is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments,
as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
"Catastrophic emergency" is loosely defined as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage,
or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
It says the president can assume the power to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
The directive says the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, currently Frances Fragos Townsend
, would be designated as the national continuity coordinator.
Corsi says the directive makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created for the national continuity coordinator with the National Emergency Act
,
which requires that such proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register."
A Congressional Research Service study notes the National Emergency Act sets up Congress as a balance empowered to "modify, rescind, or render dormant" such emergency authority if Congress believes the president has acted
inappropriately.
But the new directive appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of national continuity coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position, Corsi says.
The directive also makes no reference to Congress and its language appears to negate any requirement that the president submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists.
It suggests instead that the powers of the directive can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke affirmed to Corsi the Homeland Security Department would implement the requirements of the order under
Townsend's direction.
The White House declined to comment on the directive.
Jaded Prole
"there is no sane justification for war or the warriors that carry it out. it is a diseased relic that we must purge."
as soon as this country purges it's military, some other country's military, not yet purged will be happy to invade. you might like the odds of all the flag-waving 2nd amendment, gun-toting "warriors" of our own society defending against them, but i don't think many will. if we are to purge anything, it should be a world view that sees a security threat behind every conflict and the knee-jerk reflex to settle differences through the use of force. the u.s. is the perfect country to take the lead in peaceful conflict resolution, just as it currently takes the lead in war-mongering.
A paid killer or thug is not a Warrior, but a Shadow Warrior. As I indicated above, in the far future we may have a civilization where the role of the Warrior is obsolete. It's unrealistic to think that we can instantly transform ourselves away from thousands of years of history. Recognizing and eliminating from positions of power the Shadow Warriors is the best first step.
Bullshit. There is nothing noble about being a paid killer, There is nothing to honor about the concept of being a murderous goon. As Iraq demonstrates, People can defend and resist without an army. The "Warrior" as a calling, a concept, or an icon must die and be buried if we are to ever get to anything called civilization. There is no sane justification for war or the warriors that carry it out. It is a diseased relic that we must purge.
Many seem to have missed the point of the article. The Warrior is a noble calling, and there will probably be a legitimate role in society for them for many millennia to come (I don't think we will have world peace much sooner). It's the Shadow Warrior we must be on guard for, especially the one who occupies the Presidency at this time and the others in the Administration and Congress. Turn them out.
“The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state; the natural state is one of war.â€
Then what separates us from the beasts?
PDJ: Good points. Since this article speaks of the archetype of warrior, the astrologer recognizes this aspect as Mars. In Hindu mysticism, our physical organs correspond with invisible energy vortexes known as the chakras. The first one, primal, is linked to personal survival and the urge to procreate. This pure Mars/warrior energy is part of every human being. However, just as there are many chakras (7 in most systems), there are also other planetary or archetypal principles. We live in a solar system with clockworks marvelously inlaid by Creator. These satellites are Beings, and they emanate energy much in the way our computer chips do. Early civilization manifested primitive survival urges and war became championed; but in theory, mankind has had opportunities to evolve beyond this model. Mars' polarity is Venus, and she rules law, negotiation, and partnership. Venus also celebrates the arts and the creative (as opposed to destructive) dimensions of human beings of both genders. Look how art increases value over the centuries. Can the same be said for the investment in war? There is a built-in balance mechanism, and to the degree a society invests in armaments (Mars rules), it fails to nourish its artists, poets, architects, peacemakers and OTHER Venus emissaries. I see this as the great Venus deficit.
We need to honor the veteran by listening to them. They have wisdom that can benefit society. If America were to truly listen to its vets, it would be much harder for this country to continue to go to war. Failure to learn lessons from our wars has condemned us to continue going to war.
Hoa binh
Yes, and slavery, torture, executions, and a subordinate status for women were all also normal aspects of human behavior throughout history and prehsitory, for which only a kook would speak out against.
But, in most of the world anyway (the US being a straggler most of the time) they have been completely abolished, or are so discredited that no one argues (except for the Bush regime) for them, or in the case of the death penalty, is practiced in only a handful of barbaric countries - it's proponents being left only able to defend it to other states by claiming it as an internal affair of a sovereign state.
So, do we have any reason to believe that, with time, war and it's sister the nation-state, will likewise some day be discredited? The trend toward increasing ferocity of war over the past 90 years is not an argument against this. Slavery reached it's most vile, violent form just before it was finally, globally abolished by johnny-come-lately USA in 1865.
"War is the health of the state."
Randolph Bourne, 1918
We need to stop honoring "warriors." It's a concept rooted in barbarism and played out in brutality. We need to memorialize those who gave their lives for the lies and powerseeking of the wealthy and we need to stop the process before it stops s all. No More Warriors" No More Veterans.
' Over the past 5,600 years, historians estimate that 14,600 wars have been waged. In the twentieth century alone, over 100 million people were killed in wars all over the world although some atrocitologists figure that as many as 258,327,000 people died from massacres, slaughters, oppressions, and famines that resulted from or preceded these wars. This latter figure reflects the calculation the Lancet Report made when it said that 655,000 Iraqis had died since the United States invaded their country in 2003.'
There is only one omission in this excellent piece : The 'latter figure...' last line but one was up to July last year, almost one year ago. The study also said it might be as high at nine hundred thousand.
When do we say genocide? In the name of 'we the people'? The thirteen year embargo, illegal invasion and subsequent behaviour of the allied troops, fits all the legal definitions.
This Memorial Day, that should also be taken in to account. Troops have not died, tragic as it is, 'defending their country', they have died decimating another one, far away, which posed them no threat. It is not their fault that they did not see the lies of their government - but their rapes, massacres are at their hands and their sole responsibility.
"Given history’s record and the current state of affairs in Iraq, it might be time for us to admit that war is normal, peace is not, and that we as a human race are committed to war no matter the cost."
Thank God, not everyone is an idiot.