“childish_title”

War is sooooo childish…

DeeAnn Jennings

Everyone takes war so seriously. People die, buildings get blown up. Everyone suffers. And for what? Because some overgrown children can’t play well together.

Religious war… or you’re different, and I hate you. Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. Correct me if I’m wrong, fellas, but don’t you both believe in the Ten Commandments that are listed for you, very simply, in the book of Exodus in the Bible that you both say that you believe in? Or does the fact that Jesus died for your sins excuse you to murder your fellow human beings? And just what exactly did each one of those dead people do to you to warrant such drastic actions on your part? Come on, I want to hear your “eye for an eye” excuses as well. Nope, those just don’t measure up, either.

“Plane Nuke”

The War for Independence: I’m tired of giving you my lunch money. That big bully George and his English redcoats were taxing the crap out of the American colonists till he finally went too far. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the final straw involved the Colonies’ supply of caffeine?

“Woman and Children”

The Civil War: I don’t want to work. If you really think about the Civil War, maybe those Confederates weren’t so incredibly bad, they were just incredibly lazy and cheap. They didn’t want to do their chores or clean their rooms, so they beat up and enslaved other people to do it for them. But the rest of the country, who didn’t have nearly as many slaves and so had to work more, pulled the old “Bubba’s not doing his share!” routine, blowing it for all those poor, under-worked Southerners.

“D-Day”

World War 1: Oh, my god! They killed Archduke Ferdinand! You bastards! This is another installment of a serial war starring, believe it, the Bosnian Serbs. These guys should just be avoided at all costs. In this particular instance, they’ve killed the Archduke as a stand for their ethnic heritage (they were cheesed about being annexed by Austria-Hungary). And, as before, people are taking sides. In the beginning, Bosnian Serbs assassinated the Archduke on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, of all places. Austria-Hungary (on July 25) tells the Serbs to apologize or there’s going to be some asskickin’, which it proceeds to do on July 26. Russia, who has a paternal interest in Slavic ethnicity, steps into the fray on July 30. Which means Germany has to back up Austria-Hungary. And the U.S., England, France and Belgium jump in to back up Russia. Let’s just call it a gang war with the Axis on one side, and the Central Powers on the other. Starting to look like a Michael Jackson video to you yet?

“MacArthur”

World War 2: I want to rule the world AND kill my mother, please. After World War I, the Central Powers (winners) approached Germany like a misbehaving kid. “You promise not to do that again, right?” Aspiring dictator and rising demon seed Hitler took advantage of their weakness and manipulated his way into Yugoslavia without any real resistance. He tried to do the same to Poland. The rest of the world then took notice and decided that enough was enough. This upstart isn’t about to rule my world. Hitler’s Freudian approach to war was additionally disconcerting. It wasn’t enough that his mother die for being Jewish and making poor little Adolf a Jew, but he had to kill everyone who represented his mother. And then create a Master Race, so he would be guaranteed dates with tall, blonde, blue-eyed wenches because there wouldn’t be anyone else around. Except him. And a bunch of tall, blonde, blue-eyed beefcake. Flawed logic? I’d say so… but, he was crazy.

“DaBomb”

Israel: Mine, mine, mine!! Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs and Syrians and Iraqis and Iranians and… fighting over the same barren strip of desert. This actually started out as a case of “sibling greed.” Seems contemporary Zionists (read: spoiled brats not content with what they have) decided that they needed a country, just like everyone else. There are a couple of flaws to this logic. First, not every ethnic group has their own country. Second, you can’t just take a piece of land from some other country and not expect them to get pissed off about it. Also, every other non-country-having ethnic group (i.e. the Palestinians) tends to get pissed off. The newly established Israelites have, since their Independence Day in 1948, been involved in no less than eight fracas or outright wars with their Arab neighbors and “countryless” ethnic occupants. This “day care” mentality, take what you want when someone else is playing with it, can be observed on a day-to-day basis in pre-schools and kindergartens everywhere. Why not in the giant sandbox of the Middle East?

“Battleship”

The Korean War: The first pull of the Cold War tug-o-war Remember that all this is taking place right after the end of World War II, and the Cold War is at its height. Let’s think of the Korean peninsula as a really neat teddy bear, and two kids (communist and democratic) fighting over it. It gets complicated, because a lot of the reasons for the Korean war are tied up in the handling of Europe and Asia after World War II. USSR installs Kim Il Sung as dictator in the North, the United Nations establish Syngman Rhee as president in the South (Who? Exactly). The North gets all the arms they need from the Soviets as part of the communist expansion plan, while the South is left to develop as an independent democratic state, meaning they had basically nothing unless they could pay for it. Anyway, it turns into a huge scramble between USSR and the United States for the last piece of unclaimed candy in Asia through the guise of creating a united Korea. “It’s for your own good, you understand, boys.”

“Tiger Plane”

The Vietnam War: Before World War II, Indochina was a group of French protectorates. During World War II, Japan conquered almost the entire area. After World War II, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were freed from Japanese occupation and became “Associated States,” but the French could not regain a hold over their former colony. Ho Chi Minh, Head of Government of the newly recognized (by Communist China) Democratic Republic of Vietnam, decided that his interests were best served by siding with the Chinese Communists (go figure). France decided that it would take too much money and effort to defeat Minh and his friends and so went crying to Big Brother U.S., for assistance. But they didn’t really want assistance, they wanted out. And left Big Brother with a flaming paper bag of dogs – t.

“Battleship”

The Persian Gulf War: I want a Kuwait sundae, and nuclear arms, and chemical warfare, and… Sad little camper, Saddam Hussein, is being told not to do something he wants to. “No, you can’t have chemical warfare and play with the other kids’ toys, too.” Kind of like the little boy who doesn’t get to go to Disney World because he’s been kicking his dog… repeatedly… after being told not to do that, either. So he goes and kicks the cat instead, “so there.”

Back to Bosnia: Everyone’s against me! Why are Serbs such nasty characters? If you ask one of them, they are victims. This goes back to at least the 12th century, when they were overrun and overtaxed by the Ottomans (Muslims). They freed the Croats and Slovenes from Austrian rule, but weren’t accepted as big dog of the Yugoslav kingdom. They were suppressed by the Communists, and, when communism collapsed, the other republics wanted to break away, demonstrating their lack of gratitude for what Serbians had suffered for them. There’s so much more that poor, little Serbia has suffered, but no one seems to care… sniff, sniff. And all they’re trying to do is create a united Serbia under THEIR rule…

“Flight Formation”

Then there’s the Cold War, albeit not necessarily your normal GI Joe blow ‘em up war on a day-to-day basis. In the super-simplified format, it roughly translated to “I’ve got an ice cream, I’ve got an ice cream, and you can’t have none… “ Get the picture? But it soon became “hey, you’ve got it too! I want more than you.” Yeah? Yeah! Yeah? Yeah! Fairly uncomplicated when it was just the United States and USSR. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it seemed that the Cold War was over. But others had acquired nuclear capabilities. The threat of nuclear war is not over. How ridiculous can it get? When India starts flexing its muscle, oooooooh! It’s like being threatened by PeeWee Herman. Doesn’t mean they can’t do any damage, it’s just so hard to take seriously.

War boiled down to its essence looks like high school boys in a parking lot trying to figure out who’s cooler. We don’t outgrow that nonsense. Instead, it remains a part of basic human nature. All are affected, from amoeboid-brained hicks to the brightest lights on the face of the planet (The atom bomb will help achieve world peace… uh huh). As a result, we can justify the atrocities we believe someone else deserves. However, we are completely without fault ourselves, therefore not deserving the same treatment. Maybe if we realized we all need those kicks in the ass, we wouldn’t have to blow each other up. Physician, heal thyself ◼