Will Real Wars Come Back?
Have you noticed that our thinking about war has gotten
softer? These days, our wars tend to earn euphemisms such as: border skirmish,
police action, regime change, nation building, civil uprising, popular
revolution and gorilla opposition. Similarly, killing becomes targeting,
eliminating, taking out, and collateral damage.
Obviously, the idea of war is becoming
too repulsive to be named for what it is without shame. Anymore, you don’t
often see Group A attacking Group B with the intent of killing or enslaving
everyone in their path and taking all of their land and property. Yeah, “real
war” used to really mean something.
It used to be that horsemen pounded off the barren
steppes to pillage great swathes of quiet villages. European colonizers often
summarily claimed whatever they "discovered," demanding its resources
for themselves, and usually were more than rude to its current
inhabitants.
