WAR IS HELL

Victor Bloom MD

With all the domestic and partisan infighting going on, we tend to lose track of what is happening in the rest of the world. We also tend to lose track of history. What is happening is nothing new, and if, as the French say, the more things change, the more they remain the same, nothing denotes that phrase more truly than the phenomenon of war. The changes may be technological advances, but what remains the same is that war permits mass killing. War is a suspension of the rules of civilization. All's fair in love and war.

If all is fair in love and war, then the London blitz and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor were fair. From the Japanese point of view, we were interfering with their encroachment of China and southeast Asia, and so, as Winston Churchill so aptly predicted, with the surprise attack of Pearl Harbor, "they woke a sleeping giant." When the tide turned in favor of the allies, what was fair was the leveling of Berlin and Tokyo with conventional weapons, the (experimental) fire-bombing of Dresden, a non-industrial city, and ultimately, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was only fair.

If all is fair in love and war then it was all right for Hitler to order the extermination of the Jews, the final solution to the Jewish Question. If a subculture of people could be characterized as 'vermin' and diabolical, the cause of all Germany's woes, then it was concluded that the world would be better off without them. Ironically, these were God's chosen people, the people who wrote the Old and New Testament. In a recent book, "Hitler's Willing Executioners", a young professor related anecdotes which showed that many civilians aided the genocide. It seemed fair at the time.

Details of the Holocaust were well-documented in "Schindler's List," but other ethnic groups were included in the slaughter, such as gypsies, the mentally retarded and the mentally ill. Experiments in eugenics were rationalized with a war mentality, when the values of civilization are discarded. No longer was life considered precious and unique. Whole categories of people were largely wiped out.

It seemed that a lesson would be learned when WWI, "the war to end all wars," actually led to WWII, which has been dubbed "the last good war." One can hardly disagree with this designation as it was clear to us who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. After the horrors of the second world war came the Nuremburg trials for war criminals and the United Nations, which was to be a bulwark against further horrific wars. The advent of the nuclear age was an added factor to work unceasingly to end wars. We did not want a nuclear holocaust or face a nuclear winter. And yet terrible wars have been fought since the advent of the United Nations, back in 1946.

Freud opined that if there are weapons to be used, they will be used. This prediction will hopefully not come true especially because that there are thousands of intercontinental ballistic missles with nuclear warheads many times more powerful than the first ones exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is essential that in this day and age, facing a new millenium, we turn our efforts to outlawing or otherwise preventing war.

What we are working against is man's basic aggressive nature. Not only Freud, but Lorenz and Ardrey conceptualized a man, descended from beasts, evolved from the jungle, who adapted by being territorial and aggressive. But what may have worked in the stone age does not work now. The weapons are much more destructive now. And we are unable to stop the development of weapons of mass destruction in many other countries in the world. These include, in addition to nuclear weapons, poison gas and bacteriological warfare. The balance of power is getting more and more precarious.

History has shown man's great willingness to go to war. When the rallying-cries are out and the cause is right and patriotism is whipped up, previously civilized men resort to savagery. It is hard for us to contemplate men hacking at each other in close mortal combat, which was the rule until relatively recently. Our museums are full of such artifacts as swords and daggers, spears and maces for bludgeoning, helmets, armor, bows and arrows, and finally firearms. It is hard for us to imagine one man deliberately shooting or bayoneting another, just because he was labeled, 'enemy'. The enemy was nameless and faceless and fair game. It was kill or be killed. Then came flame-throwers and napalm, hand grenades and landmines.

What is needed as we approach the millenium is for the people to support study groups and organizations seeking a better way to resolve international disputes. We can no longer abide the truism that 'might makes right'. Our aggressive and territorial ambitions must be moderated. We must learn to negotiate, to compromise, without giving up our basic values. The world is shrinking to a 'global village' and we want our children and grandchildren to have a life, to be safe, secure and happy in it.

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and corresponding editor of their quarterly journal, Academy Forum and on the editorial board of the Detroit Medical News. He welcomes comments and questions at his e-mail address: hyperlink. URL- victorbloom.com