Conflict is Shaping Us
What are “we” here for?
This started as a letter written to Margaret MacMillan, a professor at Oxford England, about “The World That War Has Made,” an article in the Wall Street Journal dated October 3, 2020. It begs the question, who made the World as it is today? Human beings or people? I say, people. Human beings are what we believe we can become in a lifetime of internal struggle; people are what each of us is every day. Then, I read an article here, in Medium, “What I Learned While Eavesdropping on the Taliban,” written by Ian Fritz (August 20, 2021), which added to my perspective that conflict is the conundrum of humanity since Cain and Abel. “Has Conflict Shaped Us?” — Yes, it has. However, we “Also Shape Conflict” as time goes by.
A part of me says there is a worldwide misconception about “Humanity.” Charles M. Schultz said it best in one of his cartoons when after a mishap between characters, one of them exclaimed — “I love humanity; it’s people I hate.” Multiply this to make Nations with different concepts of, “What are we here for?” and you get the same conflict when there is “ambition” and/or “retaliation” by Nations.
When we think of “war,” we don’t think about humanity; we think about “us and them — people.” We believe Humanity only exists with “us” as long as we are left alone. “We,” our Nation was created with different beliefs; while Afghanistan has been as is for time immemorial, and is still the place where empires cry. They have adjusted their way of life to the terrain they occupy, settled on their set of beliefs, and are willing to die for their “individual” independence.
While “they” (the Taliban” in this case) were fighting guerrilla warfare, we were fighting a “gain and hold terrain” warfare. We were sitting ducks, waiting for the hunters in plain sight. This is why the Spanish lost the southern part of South America. While the local militia fought a guerrilla-style war from the Andes to weaken the Spanish forces on the coast and retrieve, the Spanish were happy to sit on the coast and fight the same way every time. Eventually, this forced them to go to the Middle Andes to fight, lose, and eventually abandon South America.
We define a Human Being as a “rational animal.” In times of peace that is what we are; most of us wake up every day resolute to improve on yesterday’s flaws and become a better human being. On the road to war, planning humans, using logic and the balance of risk and reward, then walk through the decision gate and expect a positive outcome of the decision for war, without thinking about the fact that the war decision redefines human beings as just “animals.” War is not fought by “humans”. War is fought by “people” — “Cane and Abel.” Nothing is rational about war — the outcome is a “one-on-one and very personal.” During war, “warriors (people)” wake up resolute to fix the mistakes made yesterday and train to become a better killing machine today.
A good definition of “people,” (heard somewhere)- “Everybody has two wolves inside of them, both of them are starving. The one wolf is aggression, anger, envy, and pride; the other one is love, truth, kindness, and courage. Every day, they tear each other apart, but it’s not the better wolf that wins. It’s the one you feed.”
Afghanistan, throughout millennia, has been defined by conflict. It has never been invaded long enough to change its modus vivendi. Generation after generation, this has embedded a culture that fights in any way it can, like a body against an infecting virus, to get rid of the foreign body, even if it kills them. To follow the allegory above, that is the wolf they feed, the one that fights. This is greatly aided by the existence of the mountainous geography, so well described by Mr. Fritz in his article. It’s like a fortress with many walls, very hard to penetrate with heavy armor, making it ideal for people to people fight and resolve.
Today, in war, a bullet is equivalent to a message via telegram with consequences. You don’t get to “see” your opponent’s eyes, but the outcome is the same. War via one-on-one, the smell of sweat and fear in your nose; a black powder delivered bullet; or a bomb delivered via an air carrier, cannon, guided missile; or an EMP wave sent via satellite (the Taliban would survive this, we won’t); still has the same purpose, “the subjugation of other people by any means.” No wonder Osama bin Laden initially went into Afghanistan. Though, in the long run, it was too uncomfortable for him to stay there. He, nevertheless, was the bait for the hook that we bit.
So, being where we are, with any nation’s varying understanding of what a “human” is, how can we stop war? Do humans have inalienable rights that are guarded by the State? Or does the state give humans their rights? In our case, they no longer ask for our opinion; they get it from a “Gallup” poll. Meanwhile, that war costs us about 4,100 Americans, felt daily by many of the shrinking middle-class and poor families. We spent nearly 1,000,000,000,000 trillion to sustain the effort and minimize casualties while using the wrong strategy; about 2 trillion if you add interest on the borrowed money we fought it with. The Taliban cost? Something they could afford.
Whether we have inalienable rights or people who are at the mercy of the state, war exists in the world today. Including states that have varying rights for “different” humans, a la Hitler, Stalin, or Mao Zedong (“different” — being subject to the state definition). Thomas Sowell said it best, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” In our case, a Congress made up of “Professional” politicians whose only interest is to chase money so they can continue drinking from that interminable well of Power. There is a huge distinction between “us” and “them.” They (the Taliban) do it as a true egalitarian force, shaped like a fist that grows five fingers every day when some are missing, with leaders that go down in the folklore as heroes. We do it because of discipline shaped under the training of the “state” and laws created by individuals who do NOT BOTHER following the Constitution.
Randy Barnett once said, “The Constitution is not the law that governs us. The Constitution is the law that governs those who govern us. They should not be able to change the meaning of the laws that govern them without going through the amendment process, any more than you or I can change the laws they make to govern us without going through the legislative process.”
Today, Congress does not bother with that. They send people to fight wars in the most impossible places with the wrong strategy (Vietnam, Afghanistan). People do it with the idea that they are defending you and me from further destruction when, in reality, they are defending FAILED Government policy, run with a lack of leadership in Congress, made up of bureaucrats, and created by money-fat Oligarchs.
Meanwhile, admitting diplomacy failed — they did not help the Afghans with education after the Russian CIA proxy war, thus losing a chance to make friends there. Foreign intelligence failed — the CIA failed to flesh out the importance of Al Qaeda; internal intelligence failed — ditto, their infiltration of our borders. And further, creating an illegal law, “The Patriot Act,” designed to put not foreigners but our own citizens through secret courts!!! All without saying a word of truth.
I heard somewhere, “Searching for oneself is a journey for a lifetime. Life is what happens in between.”
I believe war exists because humans cannot agree on who we are and how to take care of each other. What are we here for? NOT “The United Nations,” that has been proven, over and over again, to be worthless — it was created to prevent wars. We provide nearly 25% (about $12 billion) of the UN budget just for the right to speak and — not be listened to or followed in any way. There has to be a better way because climate change is not the enemy; the real enemy is “Humans” with varying understandings of what we are here for — China is the worst offender in carbon emissions.
It may be that the people’s search for their humanity can be applied to the world, “Searching for Peace is a journey for humanity. War is what happens in between.”
Yeah, “What are we here for?” In the “Big” picture, is that all there is?
Thank You for Reading — 210904
