The Worst There Ever Was

by digby

Chris Matthews just implied that modern warfare is much harder on soldiers than wars have ever been before because they are under so much more stress. He called it a "constant booby-trap" because they might be killed by an IED. Cliff Van Zandt agreed that this is worse than soldiers commonly experience.

I certainly don't disagree that they are under a lot of stress or that these roadside bombs make for a very traumatic experience. And the repeated deployments make for a cumulative effect. But the idea that these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan worse than wars have been in the past is simply mind-boggling.

Has Matthews ever heard of Guadalcanal? Or Verdun?



Does that look stressful at all to you? Those guys were in those trenches and were shelled for months on end. And every once in a while they'd get an order to go up over the top of the trench to be mowed down. It destroyed nearly an entire generation, either by death, injury or shell shock (PTSD)

War is hell and that's no lie. And the wars the military are fighting today have their own special spin on that hell. But the problem with Matthews and other pampered gasbags is that they apparently think war is some sort of a pageant and never fully grasp that war is always about lethal, bloody violence. Which is why we shouldn't do it unless there is absolutely no choice. Using it to "send messages" or "protect the country's prestige" not only kills the other, it kills your own --- and not just on the battlefield. It kills them back home when these men and women and their loved ones have to deal with the destruction this lethal violence wreaks on their minds and spirits.

It's the abstractness of the discussion that drives me crazy. And it's why I do feel that those who want to fight these proxy wars to "project power" should be forced to fight them personally. It is apparently the only way they will ever understand what their support for these abstract policies really mean to the people on both sides who fight them.

Sometimes wars have to be fought. But if you honestly don't understand that every single one of them means there will be grotesque, violent destruction of human life and years of psychological trauma for those who wage the battle, then you really shouldn't have a say in when or why.


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