let's die

The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency: G.I.'s Open Attack to Take Falluja From Iraq Rebels

well, thank god the war came back -- i was starting to get a little worried.

i have to wonder what is wrong with the world when people are so undisturbed by the notion of war as the american public seems to be. i think it's fair to say that i must be a total pacifist. certainly i am not the first person to refer to me as such. but when i think about it, i happen to like war. i like this notion of men going out on a battle field and having it out to try and see who has the bigger dick -- that is why i like sports.

and i think that i would be totally fine with war if it did not violate a couple of my core beliefs. the first, and least obvious, being that i don't like it when the stronger man is not more likely to win. bill russell kicked ass because he did beat wilt chamberlain. walter payton was the true idea of a hero. if the odds are stacked against you, and you still manage to come out on top, then you are a warrior of homeric quality.

and i just don't like things that throw that out of balance -- such as guns and the weapons that have come since. the problem with a gun or a missile or a bomber is that the person who is doing the killing was not blessed by nature with the ability to kill.

and i imagine this is where i disagree with most people, but i think that men with strength come in two types (oh how dichotometic i am ... is that even a word?), those who understand the peaceful balance of the goal of humanity, and those who don't. and that in turn, we shall praise the former and destroy the latter. and that all of this happens naturally.

for instance, if you have a man who is 6'8" and 245 lbs and quite adept at the ways of violence and the influence of the kshatriya, then he will either be the kind of man to display his strength wisely and kindly, or he will be a tyrant. if he is the former, than he will rise in the ranks of that caste in society. if he is the latter, than though he may rise in said ranks, but he will ultimately face the fate of all tyrants.

is this all a little out there?

well, it's my way of saying that nature decides what types of men we are, and that the things we do to take that balance out of the hands of nature, the more harm that we ensure for humanity. and eventually, we will have to pay that bill. guns and other impliments of war do this, they take the balance out of the hands of nature.

the first problem with this is that "little man" complex that people of short stature and such have. these people feel this overwhelming need to try and prove that they are as good as other men. large men do not have this problem. in fact, it is often that a large man seeks to be overlooked. i believe that if you put a gun in the hands of a man with this complex, then you are creating a tyrant.

and certainly there is part of me that believes that bush suffers from this ... and i remain convinced that he is anything other than a tyrant. but i guess the nice thing about this country is that he will (hopefully) fade away after another four years. of course, the shame of this nation is that the people who have the real power -- the ones that installed him in power -- will lurk on long after bush is a distant (and haunting) memory.

anyway, my second major concern about war is the tendancy for it to hurt people who have nothing to do with the key argument/disagreement at hand. and as these impliments of destruction get more and more powerful, it becomes a lot more likely that innocent people will die.

really, i guess i don't really know anything about the world. and i certainly don't understand what would possess a man to want to kill a man that he doesn't know ... let alone women and children. and i am not sure that you can ever see anything positive about the deaths of women and children. i certainly can't think of anything positive about this attack.