Imperial Fruit: Bananas, Costs and Climate Change

The curved course of the ubiquitous banana has often been the peel…

The problems with a principled stand

In the past couple of weeks, the conservative parties have retained government…

Government approves Santos Barossa pipeline and sea dumping

The Australia Institute Media Release Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s Department has approved a…

If The Jackboots Actually Fit …

By Jane Salmon If The Jackboots Actually Fit … Why Does Labor Keep…

Distinctions Without Difference: The Security Council on Gaza…

The UN Security Council presents one of the great contradictions of power…

How the supermarkets lost their way in Oz

By Callen Sorensen Karklis Many Australians are heard saying that they’re feeling the…

Purgatorial Torments: Assange and the UK High Court

What is it about British justice that has a certain rankness to…

Why A Punch In The Face May Be…

Now I'm not one who believes in violence as a solution to…

«
»
Facebook

World War 3 is not something we should be taking lightly

By Stuart Dobson

Suddenly a world war is back on the table. How did this happen? World War 3 seemed like an impossibility even just a few years ago. Yet now we’re talking about it as if it might happen. All it took were a few mentions of the “red button”, some aggression against Russia, the renewal of a nuclear program in the UK, and suddenly we’re entertaining the notion of boiling the brains of hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

We haven’t gone down the path yet, but getting the concept into the public consciousness is just one step to acceptance.

With this in mind, I feel it’s appropriate to remind people what war would actually mean, in an attempt to turn public sentiment away from this terrifying possibility.

The suffering of civilians in the second world war is a horrifying scar on humanity. It’s not something we should ever seek to replicate, let alone surpass. War isn’t like Call of Duty. It’s not just something you’ll hear about on the news and just be able to ignore. If global conflict breaks out, everyone will be involved, and everyone will suffer.

Certainly in most of the Anglosphere we have not experienced anything like the suffering of an invaded nation. Could you imagine troops knocking down your door, and raping and torturing your family? Forget any notion of fleeing, surrendering, or bravely fighting off marauding hordes. If war breaks out and they manage to avoid the nuclear option, chances are you’ll be bombed into pieces, rounded up into hellish prisons, burned alive, or killed slowly by radiation poisoning.

If you manage to avoid all that, then you might face a back-to-basics fight for survival as you realise how much you took for granted the thin veil of civilisation. Water, food and shelter suddenly shift to become your entire focus, as every day becomes an hour by hour struggle for survival. Everything you rely on, from shops, electricity, internet, and running water, to a roof over your head, could disappear in an instant.

This is what happens in war. It happened in both world wars and it’s happening now in the middle east. If the conflict goes global, there’s no reason to believe the western world won’t suffer similar treatment.

To make matters even worse, this threat of war comes during the continuing erosion of empathy. The recent rise of militarised police, the far right, the brazenness of internet trolls, the acceptance of sadistic policies and psychotic behaviour in government, and the increase in sex trafficking give little hope that should war break out, there would be any observance of basic decency. The growth of narcissism and hate is worrying enough in isolation. Take away the stability of so called law and order and the world becomes a very dangerous place.

Every aspect of life is amplified with terror on the backdrop of war. Remove the safeguards of “civilised” society, and suddenly even technological advances take on a far more dystopian dimension. Look at how the productive efforts of people were put to use during World War 2. The merciless efficiency of concentration camps, the atomic bomb, and the scale of industry depicted by vast fleets of warships still stagger the imagination. Consider the terrifying results of industry pushing the boundaries of robotic and genetic destruction.

If you’re not super rich, in a position of power, or high up in the military, you need to be very afraid of war, and we need to fight hard to avoid it at all costs. Ordinary people have nothing to gain by going to war, yet the propaganda machines of the rich manage to convince them to do so time and time again. Military contractors rake in a fortune, balances of power are shifted, and a few nefarious people have their moment of depravity. Decent, empathetic people see no benefits and suffer worse than any hell you can imagine.

We seem to have forgotten the vast scale of devastation, brutality, and industrialised terror that can occur in a global conflict. At least, we’re behaving like we have. For if the memories of the horrific murders of the last war were in the public consciousness in any meaningful way, we would not be entertaining war for a second.

This article was originally published on Social Rebirth.

 

13 comments

Login here Register here
  1. Harquebus

    The build up of NATO forces on the Russian border and the current rhetoric blaming Russia for everything has me worried. This is not a subject that I dwell on too much as nuclear war would be certain death for all of us.

    “We are very worried about aggressive US moves to create more conflict with Russia and China – in particular the Pentagon claim that the US Space Command should “control and dominate space and deny other nations the use of space”.”
    http://www.pipr.co.uk/all/preparing-for-war-with-russia-and-china-the-u-s-quest-for-global-domination-depends-on-space-technology/

  2. kerri

    I have tried on many occassions, largely to explain the desperation of refugees who take leaky boats for extraordinary payments, to describe what occurs when war befalls a country.
    Once I had a very graphic dream where I was (as far as I could figure) a news reporter on the ground. My team and I took cover in the side door vestibule outside of a church. I saw tanks rumbling past on the other side of the church and uniformed soldiers with guns at the ready running past me. It gave me a good insight into what foreign correspondants risk without the risk for me.
    I have never understood the concept of the Geneva Convention?
    If it is war, and you have guns and they have guns, and no one is watching, who is going to obey a set of rules?

  3. Andreas Bimba

    Instead of this slide into the abyss it is possible for all to live with sufficient dignity and comfort. It is possible for nations to behave in an acceptable manner. In almost every nation we are however burdened by self appointed elites that corrupt our institutions to serve themselves and their associates. Many nations abuse their people and have dreams of gaining an advantage and dominating or conquering other nations.

    Our democracy was once capable of selecting adequate political representatives and governments but has now been hijacked by the money men and other vested interests. A complicit mass media was one of the tools that enabled this slow undermining of our democracy. Most intuitively feel that they have lost any meaningful power and that the system is rigged.

    In the U.S. the rapid rise of the Bernie Sanders grass roots campaign which almost got there before it was cut off at the knees by a corrupt political establishment shows a way forward. This movement still operates but within the Democratic Party orbit. Jeremy Corbyn in the UK Labour Party also offers a new ‘old’ way to a more just society. Keep chipping away people of good will.

  4. stephentardrew

    The war is already happening and it has nothing to do with global conflagration but everything to do with containing Russia and China as if the US has superior motivations when they leave a trail of death and destruction behind with massive collateral damaged and physical suffering for men, women and children. The US NATO ego is unassailable however the truth is there is no way Europe would accept war again on its territory as the US, as usual, plays blind man’s bluff with the world.

    They know that one step into Russian territory it will not be Europe that suffers but the US as Putin has made clear. MAD is alive and well. Putin has continually made efforts to repudiate the whole world war scenario stating clearly that Russia will not start a war in Europe. If Trump and Clinton are the best the US can do then time to turn your sights on the US and not Russia and China. There is something undecidedly rotten in the US at the moment. The fall of an empire is playing out.

    Let’s be clear about this it is primarily about resources and an attempt at global corporate imperial hegemony which is the real life battle being waged at the moment. The people of Donest had legitimate claim to racial vilification as the US, through Victoria Newland, promoted an illegal coup in Ukraine as NATO attempted to close down Russia’s most important strategic port in the Crimea, Sevastopol, which led to the annexing of Crimea a forgone conclusion from the start. Would the US give up Hawaii if there was a Hawaiian coup which is a legitimate possibility since according to indigenous Hawaiians they invaded the country. Nothing is black and white.

    Even Brezeinski has suggested the US back of in Syria and re-consider the ridiculous Plan for global US hegemony. China and Russia are desperate to keep ISIS, Daesh, Al Nusra etc. out of the Stans which border their countries so it is easy to see what the real US objective is. The US is cruel and heartless when it comes to using propaganda to vilify those who have legitimate reasons to destroy the terrorist. The maddening thing is Australia is complicit in illegal wars and murder of innocents simply to satiate the desire of the US alliance. As Malcolm Fraser so clearly articulated in “Dangerous Allies” it is time for Australia to become non-aligned and act as a mediator in the region. We are, after all, an Asian country like it or not. He offered a long term plan for getting US based removed form Australia.

    We need to get the hell out of this den of thieves and vultures and chart our own course or by hell the US will lead us into war, not in Europe, but in Asia.

  5. Kay Schieren

    To anyone who believes that war will not destroy whatever their quality if life is at it’s best – it will. The ranting phsychos in the military / industrial cartels don’t even really believe that they can survive with any viable quality of life – but they may believe in the “biological necessity” of it. Comfort and luxury do get rather boring after a short while, and the marketing, I.T., etc. world has many of us convinced that everything is “virtual”. If you want to find out the difference between real and virtual, bash your fingers with a hammer while getting a nail started. You’ll get the idea.

  6. Sir ScotchMistery

    Time to start killing neo cons IMHO.

    Send them to Saudi Arabia with a facebook page called “I hate arabs”.

    Where’s my javelin?

  7. keerti

    Forgive me if I missed something, but hasn’t the world been at war since 1945. Mostly with the usa as main instigator either out front or behind the scenes. What is new in the present situation where usa is flexing it’s muscles against China And Russia? Just because war doesn’t immediately touch us doesn’t make it any less destructive to those it hits.

  8. Sir ScotchMistery

    That certainly is the issue with the current effluvia posing as government on all sides of the coalition of the killing as that moron busch called it.

  9. Harquebus

    Now that Tower Boy has defeated elite’s anointed one, Pant Suit Lady and providing that Obama doesn’t do anything stupid in the next 70 days, I think that the chances of major international conflict has now lessened somewhat.
    Cheers.

  10. glasssarah

    What has got us here is the GFC along with the inability to deal with it and thus allowing the bankers to walk away with the cash, after they created the mess, and leave millions worse off.

    Until we face up to reality and stop the 1% from screwing the rest of us we will not stop this tidal wave that has started, and we will not be able to solve the climate crisis. This is our last chance.

  11. Stuart Dobson

    Harquebus I agree. I was pretty worried about Hillary getting in when I wrote this. Still, Trump is still a wildcard and even if he doesn’t let his thin skin get the better of him he might instigate policies that take us down a bad path. This article is pretty interesting: https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/11/donald-trump-will-change-global-politics-as-we-know-it/
    He seems to want to pull back on foreign policy and let other countries protect themselves, maybe letting Japan have nukes. Again though, he’s a wildcard so who knows what he’ll do at this point.

  12. Harquebus

    Stuart Dobson
    Thanks. I’ll read that link now.
    I had a submission published here today if you are interested.

    Depopulate . . . or perish

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

The maximum upload file size: 2 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Return to home page