Poppies and the "Heroes Industry" ?

[ahinton]

I'm sorry, I just don't think it's necessary to be involved in mass killing to build some particular level of trust and friendship, to think so would seem to me to indicate a dim view of human capabilities, not to mention a tendency to glorify war, which as far as I'm concerned is by far the worst thing the human species has ever invented.

I could not agree more; whatever sort of world would it be and whatever kind of life could one have within it if the development and maintgenance of trust and friendship were indeed dependent upon involvement mass killing? War is precisely as you describe it; humanity always loses - no one ever "wins". It is not merely an inhuman activity but an anti-human one, perhaps the most depressing aspect of which is that two devastating world wars and other smaller scale military conflicts around the globe over the years appear so far to have taught far too many people far too little or nothing at all.

"Queen and country"? As I've said before, "tell that to the Marines"!

[Mr Pee]

I have not done so and should therefore not deduce how I'd respond if I had done so, but my suspicion is that I would doubt it all the more had I done so, not least for the reasons that I have outlined above.

You were right in the first part of the above, that not having watched that excellent series you should not try to deduce how you would respond, but then you go and spoil it by doing precisely that.

[Mr Pee]

I could not agree more; whatever sort of world would it be and whatever kind of life could one have within it if the development and maintgenance of trust and friendship were indeed dependent upon involvement mass killing? War is precisely as you describe it; humanity always loses - no one ever "wins". It is not merely an inhuman activity but an anti-human one, perhaps the most depressing aspect of which is that two devastating world wars and other smaller scale military conflicts around the globe over the years appear so far to have taught far too many people far too little or nothing at all.

"Queen and country"? As I've said before, "tell that to the Marines"!

No one ever wins? Would you rather the Nazis had been allowed to conquer Europe and eventually the UK without any resistance? Would an unopposed European and Asian Nazi dictatorship have been a palatable alternative to WW2? In your pink fluffy little dreamworld you can fantasise all you like about a world without war, but the truth is that it is sometimes a necessary evil.

Oh, and if you want to talk about mass killing, start with Auschwitz, the mass killing at which would not have been halted had Russian, US and Commonwealth forces not gone to war against Germany.

As I say, a necessary evil.

[amateur51]

No one ever wins? Would you rather the Nazis had been allowed to conquer Europe and eventually the UK without any resistance? Would an unopposed European and Asian Nazi dictatorship have been a palatable alternative to WW2? In your pink fluffy little dreamworld you can fantasise all you like about a world without war, but the truth is that it is sometimes a necessary evil.

Oh, and if you want to talk about mass killing, start with Auschwitz, the mass killing at which would not have been halted had Russian, US and Commonwealth forces not gone to war against Germany.

As I say, a necessary evil.

You do know who enabled the Americans to get to the moon before the Soviet Union, don't you Mr Pee?

As I recall Britain declared war on Germany; it has just waded into Afghanistan with the Americans and the backing of UN as you say in the case of Afghanistan but not in the case of Iraq.

You seem all to keen to play up courage and comradeship to justify the horrors of war, but you have still to reflect on why more British troops kill themselves currently than the Afghanis do.

And do you really want these psychologically and physically wounded people walking the streets of UK without support, homeless, highly trained and potentially very dangerous with their sense of grievance?

[ahinton]

You were right in the first part of the above, that not having watched that excellent series you should not try to deduce how you would respond, but then you go and spoil it by doing precisely that.

Not so. I wrote quite specifically of my "suspicion is that I would doubt it all the more had I done so, not least for the reasons that I have outlined above"; note the use of the word "suspicion" and that those reasons centre on your argument that reads "as if to say that such relationships of "mutual trust" and "levels of friendship"..."would be hard to achieve anywhere" other than in the kind of situation that the journo describes".

[ahinton]

No one ever wins? Would you rather the Nazis had been allowed to conquer Europe and eventually the UK without any resistance?

No, of course not, but that does not undermine the validity of my statement (which you question here) that no one ever wins. Both sides lost hundreds of thousands of people as did other participating countries and the effects on the economies of both sides were felt for many years after the end of WWII, just as had been the case with WWI. The fact that the Nazis eventually surrendered (and, of course, WWI was not exactly only between Britain and Germany anyway) hardly signifies that the Brits "won". Almost everyone directly involved in the conflict, as well as everyone else in the participating and affected countries who were not directly involved in it, lost severely in more ways than one.

In your pink fluffy little dreamworld you can fantasise all you like about a world without war

I live in no such world, nor do I "fantasise" about something that, instead of fantasising, we should all be actively working towards.

but the truth is that it is sometimes a necessary evil.

Only to the extent that someone starts a war in the first place; the problem with your view appears to be that you accept war as a mere "necessary evil" and until such a view is, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad almost certainly did not say word for awork about Israel, "wiped off the map", permanently, there will almost certainly be more of them in future that no one wins.

Oh, and if you want to talk about mass killing, start with Auschwitz, the mass killing at which would not have been halted had Russian, US and Commonwealth forces not gone to war against Germany.

That "mass killing" saw off not only some six million Jews but also no small number of non-Jewish Germans in the years from the rise of the Nazis until the close of WWII; if you add to that tally the number of "Russian, US and Commonwealth forces" lost during the war with Germany alone, there'd not have been so very much more to halt, surely?

[MrGongGong]

Oh, and if you want to talk about mass killing, start with Auschwitz, the mass killing at which would not have been halted had Russian, US and Commonwealth forces not gone to war against Germany.

As I say, a necessary evil.

You don't read what I say anyway
BUT this is yet another shallow attempt at justifying crime.
I'm sure you really do believe the story that the UK armed forces are the "best in the world" and there are plenty of cases where they have performed acts of humanity and compassion. BUT (and it's an important BUT) to simply say that because Hitler was bad and the UK is good then everything done by the armed forces is therefore RIGHT is stupid and foolish. I guess you do include the soldiers who murdered innocent protesters on Bloody Sunday in the "heroes" narrative. Sad and dangerous.

[ahinton]

As I recall Britain declared war on Germany; it has just waded into Afghanistan with the Americans and the backing of UN as you say in the case of Afghanistan but not in the case of Iraq.

This is precisely my point and I have made it before, albeit to no avail where Mr Pee is concerned.

You seem all to keen to play up courage and comradeship to justify the horrors of war, but you have still to reflect on why more British troops kill themselves currently than the Afghanis do.

This is indeed clearly the case with our Mr Pee who, it would seem, would almost certainly feel like some kind of fish out of water were he ever to find himself living in a warless "pink fluffy little dreamworld" as a consequence of what he damns as "fantasising" having become reality. His apparent implication that "courage" is the exclusive property of military practice or that such practice has at the very least a monopoly on it is a grave perversion of its true meaning; the same applies to his apparently blinkered view of "comradeship". It's bad enough to suggest that these two phenomena are well illustrated by the context of military action but to seek also to "justify the horrors of war" by playing them up, as you observe, is considerably worse.

And do you really want these psychologically and physically wounded people walking the streets of UK without support, homeless, highly trained and potentially very dangerous with their sense of grievance?

We'll have to await Mr Pee's answer to that (should he provide one) but, in the meantime, I cannot help but wonder whether he's ever even given thought to that; frankly, I would be worried about thousands upon thousands of such people walking the streets of UK having been demobbed even if they did have adequate support and living accommodation, because even that will not alone make life easy for such people or ensure their immediate ability to engage constructively with society "back home".

[ahinton]

You don't read what I say anyway
BUT this is yet another shallow attempt at justifying crime.
I'm sure you really do believe the story that the UK armed forces are the "best in the world" and there are plenty of cases where they have performed acts of humanity and compassion. BUT (and it's an important BUT) to simply say that because Hitler was bad and the UK is good then everything done by the armed forces is therefore RIGHT is stupid and foolish. I guess you do include the soldiers who murdered innocent protesters on Bloody Sunday in the "heroes" narrative. Sad and dangerous.

One problem with this viewpoint is the risk that, just like the "courage" and "comradeship" issue referred to above, a grossly and dangerously misleading impression be conveyed that great acts of humanity and compassion more often than not require armed forces personnel to carry them out because their training equips them to do so better than most other people. Of course military service personnel have indeed performed such acts at times, just as some have undoubtedly behaved courageously and in a spirit of comradeship not only with their professional colleagues but also with those whom they serve, for example in emergency situations during peacetime; they are of course to be applauded loudly for that and yes, perhaps certain aspects of their training and discipline might well enhance their abilities in these respects BUT those parts of their training and discipline that relate specifically to killing and maiming quite obviously give them nothing towards this kind of thing at all and, after all, that's the main thing that they've been paid to do and will continue to be paid to do for the foreseeable future.

It would be an interesting situation indeed if forces personnel eventually came to have less and less wars to be sent to fight and their rôles had increasingly to be devoted instead to constructive peacetime operations, including dealing with certain non-combative emergencies; they'd have to get used to that, though, for the only alternative would be to sack most of them!

[Serial_Apologist]

One problem with this viewpoint is the risk that, just like the "courage" and "comradeship" issue referred to above, a grossly and dangerously misleading impression be conveyed that great acts of humanity and compassion more often than not require armed forces personnel to carry them out because their training equips them to do so better than most other people. Of course military service personnel have indeed performed such acts at times, just as some have undoubtedly behaved courageously and in a spirit of comradeship not only with their professional colleagues but also with those whom they serve, for example in emergency situations during peacetime; they are of course to be applauded loudly for that and yes, perhaps certain aspects of their training and discipline might well enhance their abilities in these respects BUT those parts of their training and discipline that relate specifically to killing and maiming quite obviously give them nothing towards this kind of thing at all and, after all, that's the main thing that they've been paid to do and will continue to be paid to do for the foreseeable future.

It would be an interesting situation indeed if forces personnel eventually came to have less and less wars to be sent to fight and their rôles had increasingly to be devoted instead to constructive peacetime operations, including dealing with certain non-combative emergencies; they'd have to get used to that, though, for the only alternative would be to sack most of them!

One test would be how well-suited ex-service personnel are to jobs in the emergency services: why one wonders do we not hear anything about this?

[ahinton]

One test would be how well-suited ex-service personnel are to jobs in the emergency services: why one wonders do we not hear anything about this?

I do not know the answer to that but I do know that many ex-service personnel find it very hard to get to grips with civvy street for reasons not necessarily confined to employment issues even if they've never been on active front line military service.

[Mr Pee]

I do not know the answer to that but I do know that many ex-service personnel find it very hard to get to grips with civvy street for reasons not necessarily confined to employment issues even if they've never been on active front line military service.

How do you know that? Do please tell us.

After 22 years in the Military, I am in touch with a large proportion of former colleagues, both from the Music Branch and the wider RAF, and indeed Army; and every one of them has re-settled perfectly well, and without problems, into most civilian careers, everything from teacher, to musician, to National Park ranger, to Paramedic, to Chef.

I speak from personal experience. What do you speak from?

[Serial_Apologist]

How do you know that? Do please tell us.

After 22 years in the Military, I am in touch with a large proportion of former colleagues, both from the Music Branch and the wider RAF, and indeed Army; and every one of them has re-settled perfectly well, and without problems, into most civilian careers, everything from teacher, to musician, to National Park ranger, to Paramedic, to Chef.

I speak from personal experience. What do you speak from?

Well you must be one of the few not to know that! Ahinton wasn't referring to post-armed service employment prospects alone, but adjustment to the whole of life on the outside, where there have been many cases which you have obviously not come across of ex army personnel find difficulties in relating to their nearests and dearests, getting into fights, turning to alcohol, suffering mental breakdowns, and what's more, not being taken proper care of by either the civilian or military services in their plight.

[ahinton]

Well you must be one of the few not to know that! Ahinton wasn't referring to post-armed service employment prospects alone, but adjustment to the whole of life on the outside, where there have been many cases which you have obviously not come across of ex army personnel find difficulties in relating to their nearests and dearests, getting into fights, turning to alcohol, suffering mental breakdowns, and what's more, not being taken proper care of by either the civilian or military services in their plight.

That's exactly what I was talking about - and I have experienced a number of people having encountered some of these problems at first hand, as have othes that I know. I'm not suggeting that it applies across the board - Mr Pee is correct about that much - but it remains a grave issue for many people who have "served Queen and country" and who are then given insufficient support to integrate into the comparative normality of civilian society which, especially for those who have been on active service on the battlefield, is almost always a difficult thing to do in any case.

[teamsaint]

No one ever wins? Would you rather the Nazis had been allowed to conquer Europe and eventually the UK without any resistance? Would an unopposed European and Asian Nazi dictatorship have been a palatable alternative to WW2? In your pink fluffy little dreamworld you can fantasise all you like about a world without war, but the truth is that it is sometimes a necessary evil.

Oh, and if you want to talk about mass killing, start with Auschwitz, the mass killing at which would not have been halted had Russian, US and Commonwealth forces not gone to war against Germany.

As I say, a necessary evil.

The narrative of the whole horrors of the third Reich and the second world war doesn't start at Auschwitz.