A bomb is just a bomb

[Osterbaum]

I could use the same argument for abortion. Ever see an aborted fetus? It will make some people vomit immediately. So should abortion be illegal or unconstitutional based on that alone???

This isn't about making war illegal. This is about giving people the 'wrong' view of war. Sure same could be aplied to abortion, but that's another topic to be quite honest.

What about operations? Some people will faint at the sight of blood. Should operations then be illegal because people don't want to see them?

Again, different topic and this isn't about making war illegal.

Same goes for gay marriages. And it seems that your examples seem to drift to different things all the time.

I think abortions are DISGUSTING but also right.
Same for war.

I never think war to be right. But again, this is not our topic. Our topic is photographing of war etc.

Do you not agree that when we are only shown pictures of missiles and the like and not what they actually do when they hit their 'target' that this does not make it easier to get our support for a war or atleast not make it as easy for us to go totally against it?

Ask anyone who's been in a war if they support war. Ask them if they would go to a war again themselves.

[Dasanudas]

Originally Posted by adamark

What about operations? Some people will faint at the sight of blood. Should operations then be illegal because people don't want to see them?

Actually there's a cable channel that shows live footage of operations - seriously disturbing stuff - so naturally I and my friends would be unable to look away as we sit around at 3 in the morning. But this is besides the point.

The thing is, not all pictures of war are just photos of missiles sitting on deck. The best pictures around show the horrors of war - not just destruction either, but the intense emotions of the situations. The two I immediately think of are the poor Vietnamese boy just before he's shot in the head, and the little girl running down the street with her back ablaze with napalm.

And why stop at just war? There are lots of situations that we think we "know" but don't really get until we see what the true effects are. Ever see the children with no arms or no legs beause of tribal wars in Africa? Ever see the starving child with a vulture larger than him just standing a foot away waiting for him to be weak enough to eat? Ever see the early 1900s photo of Armerican immigrants living 32 to a tiny studio? The pictures are out there and the photographers are looking for them, but I agree that most times if you simply read a newspaper, they'll give you propoganda in the form of a sleek looking jet with shiny missiles waiting to defend freedom.

It's much the same thing as what PETA is trying to do with the animal slaughtering businesses (I support their goal, but their methods are criminal, by the way). People see an elegant fur coat but seem to not realize that it was stripped off a living animal as it screamed in agony. A big juicy burger is shown on a billboard, but not the diseased cow who is crying in terror at the sounds of countless others of it's species dying.

The world is filled with glamorized photos and ideas that are needed because people want to enjoy like mad and not think about how much suffering has to be had for them to do it. Let me have my Nikes and not think about the 5 year old who made them for less than 10 cents a day and who is strip searched before leaving his 14-hours-a-day job in case he tries to sneak some leather to his family to make a pair of shoes for his brother. There can be found a lot of sentiment on these things - be nice to animals, we shouldn't have war, slavery is bad - but where is the honest action to stop it. Who's willing to give up tiolet paper to stop deforstation? (I like to ask this of tree-huggers, you can too: Does a tree-hugger use tiolet paper?) There was a serious oil crises warning recently with these prices rising and concerns of lack and having to dip into the national oil reserve. So many people were concerned and said something should be done, but did any one of us see any change in automobile use or trains or planes or any other gasoline engine use? I sure didn't in my city. This is sentiment and nothing else - alligator tears to make a show of awareness, but no real honest action to improve.

[Osterbaum]

The best pictures around show the horrors of war - not just destruction either, but the intense emotions of the situations. The two I immediately think of are the poor Vietnamese boy just before he's shot in the head, and the little girl running down the street with her back ablaze with napalm.

Perhaps, but most pictures are still of so called unimportant things. And you just hit the spot right there; Vietnam. Since Vietnam goverments (I suppose especially the US goverment since they were the ones in Vietnam) have understood the importance of keeping the home front behind the war effort. They have understood what 'wrong' pictures in the peoples morning papers can do.

And why stop at just war?

Yes, this does of course aply to almost everything, but the topic now is war since it is ever present. Also it is a good example to use.

You speak of lack of action. What is needed to get people to do something, is the absolute truth, the horrors of war truly captured to let people know. When people see it, they can no longer try to pretend but they have to do something even if just to get peace for themselves.

[Funka Genocide]

It's not for you to see.

The men that die so valiantly die because of the decisions made on a national level by the very shielded minds they fight for. Its an odd symbiosis that allows ignorance to continue at the cost of lives willingly sacrificed. Its how a nation maintains its identity and vitality, through the offering of dumb young men to the gods of public oppinion.

You can't shake a path towards war and wanton death by simply showing its bitter fruit. If that were the case I'd want the slain and massacred pasted on billboards along the highway, if all it took was a shock to the American system to end this idiocy I'd gladly give up all pretense of decency and force the message down the collective throat of my nation. The truth is people aren't just ignorant, they're apathetic to the point of uselessness. I sound like such a cliched cynic I know, but nobody bothers to make their own decisions anymore.

They have access to the terrible images you speak of, moreso they are consciously aware of what is going on even without having their thoughts verified through photography or video. The common man has never been innocent of the knowledge of pain and misery, it's the lowest common denominator. Every citizen with even a shred of communal awareness knows that war brings death on a massive scale, regardless of the minutae of its vehicle death is assured in the minds of all, make no mistakes about that.

This world is desensitized, shock is a form of entertainment, not enlightenment. Your sentiment is admirable Oster, but it will take so much more than a few graphic photos to open the eyes of the world. I wishit weren't so, but for now nobody sees the things you speak of for one simple reason.

They don't want to. They are children confronted with a real life boogey man, something undeniably grotesque and terrifying, something that is real to them yet cannot and will not be grasped or embraced. Daddy wields the flashlight of security and banishes the demon to the depths of the closet, the child doesn't know how its done and doesn't care, they are simply glad that someone stronger faced their horror. Of course in this metaphor the bogey is a construct of the childs mind, just as war is a manifestation of the publics paranoia and reactionism. Daddy is the benevolent government who wants a happy child so that he can get some sleep, and that shining flashlight is the men who die so tragically, powered by the ever ready batteries of false idealism.

[Osterbaum]

I sound like such a cliched cynic I know, but nobody bothers to make their own decisions anymore.

I agree, you do sound like a cynic. And I think you are wrong. Not everyone is like that. Most people aren't really like that.

I'd also like to state, that I am not only talking about the american society.

They have access to the terrible images you speak of, moreso they are consciously aware of what is going on even without having their thoughts verified through photography or video.

But things NEED to be verified. People need to see in order to know.

Acces to this material is not enough. It needs to be next to the news story which people are bothering to watch.

Your sentiment is admirable Oster, but it will take so much more than a few graphic photos to open the eyes of the world.

It will take more. Some of that which is needed is allready there. This is just a step further.

They don't want to.

Often people do not want to see the truth, but that doesen't mean that truth shouldn't be told.

[adamark]

Often people do not want to see the truth, but that doesen't mean that truth shouldn't be told.

If you think the only truth in war is a dead civilian or the mangled corpse of a soldier, you are only looking at a tiny percentage of it.

The truth may very well be that these things are gruesome, yet necessary. Is that a truth you are prepared to face, and accept? You're right, often people do not want to see the truth, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be told.

[Funka Genocide]

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I think you are wrong. Not everyone is like that. Most people aren't really like that.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

I'd also like to state, that I am not only talking about the american society.

You are correct, I made a gross generalization in my statement. I'm simply going off of the voting public in America, which though it constitutes a great deal of people, is by no means the majority of the world.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

But things NEED to be verified. People need to see in order to know.

Acces to this material is not enough. It needs to be next to the news story which people are bothering to watch.

That's what you think, maybe even what I think, but that doesn't matter. What matters is what the majority of the viewing public thinks and how the media reacts to it. If there was a great enough outcry for in depth and unadulterated footage the media would reply, it runs off of a capitalist system obviously. You can't force feed the world what it doesn't want.

This is my point entirely, you seem to be coming at this from the perspective that the majority of people are ignorant through no fault of their own. In this age of internet and satellite communication practically everything in the world is at our fingertips! The only reason for ignorance now is apathy. You can't make the world give a shit by throwing the things it rejects back at its face, you have to go deeper than that.

Originally Posted by Osterbaum

Often people do not want to see the truth, but that doesn't mean that truth shouldn't be told.

From a purely idealistic view yes, from the perspective of one who seeks truth above all things of course. Yet who are you, who am I to foist my truths onto others?

Its seldom that unwanted truths are accepted graciously by society, people as a whole are liable to rebel against them before they acquiesce and accept. In short people only see what they are willing to, so no matter how much truth you bring to them no good is done unless they are ready to believe it. By showing the graphic detail of war you hope to awaken the conscience of the world I suppose, but all you will garner is a few gasps and perhaps an increased level of hostility. War is in and of itself abhorrent, the vry concept not just the death on both sides. You have to start earlier in the evolution of conflict to stop it.

You can't take a photograph of a murder and hope it brings the victim back to life, it's too late for that.

[TheZeroMan]

So gathering from this disscussion and your original post the point and topic is that war is hell.

If so. I agree. Way to go, and yet that won't stop anyone from ever going to war, so what can you do? Good pictures or bad its not going to stop...

[Lord Bitememan]

I never think war to be right.

Really? Think of the concepts that you must scrap in order to fully justify that statement.

You scrap the concept of a national right to self-defense with a notion like that. In the paradigm, as you have articulated it, a state that fights a war to repel unprovoked foreign aggression is still wrong, because war, in your words, is never right.

You also scrap the notion of collective security, that the strong have a fundamental obligation to protect the weak from the unscrupulous. In your view protecting a nation like, say, Kuwaite, from foreign domination and invasion from its neighbors is wrong because war is wrong.

Your view is too stringent. Those who live up to your view conceed a world where the wrong militarily dominate the right for the right cannot defend themselves against the wrong.

This is, of course, if you mean your sentiment to the absolute. Certainly, I expect, there is a clause in your beliefs whereby the defenders and the aggressed are, indeed, allowed to defend themselves through the use of military force. Then, in that case, we run into the implications of the way you would have war covered. You might indeed conceed the defensive war is just, but you want the spilled blood and blown-up bodies shown to the defending citizenry. . . and for what? Those fighting a just war to defend themselves need to feel bad about what they are doing? They need to experience some catharsis in order to rightly protect their security? And what possible effect could this have except but to instill a reluctance to fight in those who are fighting what might well be a just war. This is an impossible moral paradigm in a world that has learned the dangers of peace at all costs (appeasement) and media-driven over-reluctance to fight (think Somalia and US reluctance to intervene in the Rwandan genocide).

[Archbio]

This is, of course, if you mean your sentiment to the absolute. Certainly, I expect, there is a clause in your beliefs whereby the defenders and the aggressed are, indeed, allowed to defend themselves through the use of military force.

I can see that sentiment as absolute even in that case. The aggressor is the cause of war, not the other way around. I don't think this sentiment (there are no just wars) equates with absolute pacifism. Military action doesn't equate war.

One nation invades another. The latter defends itself. It's not in the wrong, but certainly I wouldn't say that "the war is right". I see that you imply that a war of invasion is, in effect, "two wars", a defensive and an offensive. One just war and one unjust war? That seems like playing on words to me. If one takes war as a unite event, I think "there are no just wars" is correct.

Those fighting a just war to defend themselves need to feel bad about what they are doing?

On the one hand you take the idea that there are "just wars" as self-evident. At the same time, you make this statement, which basically implies that few would come to that same conclusion if faced with the reality of what even a defensive war entails. Now why would I, who is not faced with foreign invasion, come to that conclusion? Yet, I do. I think that the cynism in this might be too strong.