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The War WordThe Good thing about WarWhat's the sense of dealing with words if it's possible to suck the blood out of "war" and cause it to lose its strength? When the word war loses its meaning, so does freedom, peace and love. War is the most destructive and deadly enterprise known to humanity, the worst occurrence that a people or nation can encounter. The worst. Consequently, the word war ranks as one of the most powerful words in the vocabulary. The Tribunal at Nuremberg stated: "to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, ... it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."The costs and resources required to conduct a war reach such enormous proportions that the conflicting forces stand out in violent clarity. That's the good thing about war. It's easy to see right from wrong, the aggressor from the attacked, the good guys from the bad. Whose territory has been invaded? Who invaded it? Whose country is being ravaged? Who is ravaging it? Whose cities and homes are being bombed? Whose planes are dropping the bombs? Whose women and children are being killed? Deadly clear. Supreme CriminalsThe US invasion and occupation of Iraq falls solidly under the definition of a war of aggression. But you don't need a definition. Dead children covered in dried blood make themselves understood in all languages. The occupation and killings in Afghanistan and the daily murders from drones in Pakistan are among other enterprises of infamy committed by the war criminals. Yet many supposedly well-informed people regard leading American politicians as honorable, reputable individuals. Referring to the leadership as criminals meets ridicule; it's disrespectful, delusional, blasphemous.That's quite an achievement. The greatest criminals of our times, the initiators of aggressive war, manage to maintain a distinguished reputation while spilling the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. They do this by sucking the life out of the word war. The leadership of the USA should stand up and take a bow. To hide and dilute the realities of a major war deserves admiration. Common criminals can't manage this. Making monumental evil appear sanitized is an accomplishment that the devil himself could be proud of. The collective leadership of the USA are not merely criminals, but are the supreme international criminals, committing a crime that "contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." They are murderers (1.3 million Iraqis killed), thieves, kidnappers, assaulters (3-6 million seriously injured), perjurers, torturers, arsons and perpetrators of crimes that don't even exist in civilians life. What do we call the crime of bombing cities and turning families into refugees (over 4 million)? How do we label the crime of jailing tens of thousands of young men ("suspects") indefinitely and denying them all forms of basic rights? Media DungeonsThese supreme criminals remain at large because they have imprisoned the word war in the dungeons of their media. They managed information so that the war in Iraq wasn't mentioned more than 2 minutes per week in news broadcasts. They manage information so that war becomes insignificant, less important than celebrity gossip, quiz games, recipes and sports events. While real war is neglected, fictitious - literary, film, comic-strip and TV game - wars enjoy enormous exposure. War becomes an abstraction, entertainment.What's the point of discussing words when the most powerful word of all barely has the strength to raise an eye brow? Why discuss words when it is considered improper or delusional to call the supreme criminals criminal? Why discuss words when accomplices to the war criminals, "the coalition of the willing", can strut in the spotlight of their nations as though they were statesmen. Why discuss words when none are available to describe those who silently accept the aggression so that they can profit from joint enterprises with the supreme criminals? The good thing about war is that it paints contradictions in explosive clarity. Those who refuse to see the initiators of war as criminals run the risk of being accused of ignorance. Although ignorance is not a crime, the guilty will surely be sentenced to ignominy. © Joel Miller/BenTarZ ⇐ Back - 00 Introduction Next - 02 The Word Jew ⇒ |