War

I've been reading Tam's history lessons and it has prompted me to spout off. Yes, war is a funny business, especially the way it is treated by the media. One American dies and it makes headlines coast to coast. A thousand Iraqi's die and it might make the evening news in New York, if there's time.

Hilter deliberately orchestrated the execution of millions of people, mostly Jewish, during the second world war, and the Jews are never going to let us forget about it. Good for them. The Khmer Rouge killed a similar number of people in Cambodia not too long ago, and I haven't heard word one about it lately. Stalin killed an enormous number of people in Russia when he was in power, I am not sure anyone even knows how many.

I don't know how many Iraqi's have died since we first invaded, but I would not be surprised to here that they have lost a thousand for every American who had died over there.

Another funny thing about the statistics, is they don't tell us how many deaths and injuries are due to enemy action as opposed to just everyday army business. I have talked to a few veterans and there are any number of jobs in the military that are just plain dangerous, even when there is no combat involved. Any kind of flight deck is one place, and any place where you have big, heavy, powerful machinery is another. I would not be surprised if half of the American military deaths in Iraq are just plain everyday military accidents.

Then there is the tag line "the ultimate sacrifice" that gets stuck in a every newpaper article when someone gets killed. There are any number of things worse than death. Like being in continual screaming agony. Our medics are getting better and they are saving peoples lives who might have otherwise died, but I wonder how many of those people are glad to still be alive in their crippled or otherwise damaged condition.

Killing people has always been the number one sport on this planet, well, at least as long as there have been people keeping track of what people were doing, and it looks like it is going to continue that way for the foreseeable future.