The vast majority of people in wars die in a pathetic manner. You get shot from someone you never got to see, your tank rolls over an ied, you get bombed from above, your convoy gets ambushed before you even get to the front. Done. It's gone. It's the end for you /
Seeing conflicts n violence through the mediation of the Internet and TV should have personalised these losses, but what it did was just the opposite: It dehumanised the human cost even further. Our brains apparently link the war to games or movies and we feel nobody really dies
We wake up and take part in these conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza or Syria as if they were not real, as if they were there for our entertainment. We consume war as if entertainment. We think of it as something with a plot, characters, development archs.
And don't get me wrong, sometimes you do get stories of immense heroism and bravery in face of danger. Or stories of incredible valiance and charity and respect for your enemies.
But most histories are like those soldiers in Gaza. The tank rolled over an Ied, they died. The end. Or kids in Khan Younis. Their building got bombed, collapsed and they died. The end.
I'm not strictly a pacifist - there are moments when war is a need, when it is, as they said, "the continuation of politics by other means". By I'm not a JΓΌngerite either. I can't see anything good in a 20 yo dying in a pathetic way. At best, a necessary evil.
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