War

It isn't that I'm anti-war so much, but I'm more anti-prowar. (There's a difference.) I suppose a "good" war is at least theoretically possible, but the depressing thing is that for one side to be fighting a good war, that requires the other side to be fighting a bad one.  If only both sides could be in the right! (On the other hand, looking at the 1982 Falklands War, I wish both sides could have lost.  Jorge Luis Borges compared it to "two bald men fighting over a comb.")

But I'll say this much for war:  sometimes a guy will become a hero who'd otherwise be a loser all his life.  It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and even the most terrible wars produce winners.  I have a theory that war functions as an outlet for all the craziness that accumulates in a society.  It's appropriate that London's Imperial War Museum is in a building that used to be a mental institution.

Consider the case of Canada entering World War II.  In taking Britain's side so quickly, we took a more honourable course than the Americans, who waited two long years till Hitler declared war on them. (And some of them have the nerve to call the French cowards!) If I'd been an M.P. in 1939, how would I have voted?  If I thought that the vote was going to be close, I'd probably have voted yes.

But it was never going to be close, so I would have voted no just to show the government that they weren't getting a blank cheque.  As it is, I'm glad J.S. Wordsworth prevented the vote from being unanimous.  He warned that entering the war would put Canada on a slippery slope, and I see that happening today with Canada's campaign against Islamists in Syria.

Soldiers have my respect.  I couldn't do what they do every day, even in peacetime.  Our troops are serving us even when our government sends them on the wrong missions.  But I despise governments that hide behind the soldiers they're endangering, playing the "Support Our Troops" card to pre-empt criticism of their military policies.

As long as there's fear, there'll be war.