WAR vol.1

War … why to?

Yesterday I planned to have a nice morning no matter what, with milky coffee and some “Beatles” music, but very first information which popped up in my mobile from CNN was about confusing situation in Egypt. Even though the morning was good, still there are some global things to give me reason think wider than just my private life limits, so here im going to talk about war, especially from the place full of troubles – Georgia.

There are many definitions of war. Merriam-Webster dictionary says that war is “a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations”, Stanford - “war should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities”. 

Battle has always been an active topic to discuss and be afraid of in everyday life, but the beginning in recorded history is between 4 000 and 3 500 BC in the place – Hamoukar - modern north-eastern Syria, which was invaded and colonized by the people named Uruks, willing to expand their lands in southern Mesopotamia - the territory of modern Iraq.

Historians believe that people of Hamoukar armed themselves to defend their freedom out of slavery. According to the digging discovery of University of Chicago stones and slings were the weapon of battle.

Of course there was war always, but warriors as professionals were faced on the stone tablets in 2 700 – 2 600 BC, when the war happened between Sumerians, in modern Iraq, who tried to subdue the Elamits – the settlement of modern Iran territory. The stone tablets show that Sumerians got the Elamites and slaved them.

The more mankind was developed the more war has been spread in different directions with different motivations. There are more than 30 types of war known for today, but sure im not going to list all of them, just most active ones, like:

Civil war is the war between minimum two groups of people with same nation or state.

Religion-based war is the conflict between armed groups because of difference in religion.

Limited war is the battle in which all the available resources are in limited use because of people, culture or nature and is the term opposite to “total war”.

Bloodless war is the conflict without any human injuries, but it may cause material damage of participants. Generally it is not the pure type of war, but as the word “war” means violence, the term “bloodless war” is still in the list.

Unfortunately or maybe for good of us there is no real number of total people died in wars of history and the reasons are unregistered population from ancient time or unfiled or saying the truth – hidden death of participants of wars.

If we are back to ancient time, Punic Wars – three series war between Rome and Carthagen in 264 – 146 BC - were one of the bloodiest with casualties number of 1.5% out of 200 million world population, which is 250 000 plus killed.

For the latest bloodiest war the casualties’ number is between 50 million to 72 million and the war is World War II, which took place in 1939-45. Approximately 1 100 U boats were sunk or lost and diseases were the natural weapons killing civilians …

However, I need to repeat that not all the death of people are recorded in sources, but An Shi rebellion in China in 755-763 takes second place with 36 million death …

After having that scare numbers of mankind annihilation, Asia is the hot spot for conflicts. There are numbers of ongoing wars there, like conflict in Afghanistan, war in North-West Pakistan, Syrian Civil War, Iraqi insurgency, Kurdish separatism in Iran, Kashmir conflict, Kurdish-Turkish conflict … and many others.

Africa is in poor condition as well with Libyan factional fighting, war in Darfur, insurgency in the Maghreb, Western Sahara conflict …

There are many ways people offer to avoid war conflicts. They suggest to spread the information in society, which personally I support a lot, or to create and sign the petitions, or to vote for leader against conflict or protest and demonstrate with anti-war motives and gather followers, reduce racism and increase the understanding between majority and minority of all kinds …

While talking about signs there is one interesting fact that two-finger V for Victory sign is synonymous with Winston Churchill, it actually was the idea of a Belgian refugee in London, Victor De Laveleye.
Still there is no day on the earth without war, but the shortest war on record took place in 1896 when Zanzibar surrendered to Britain after 38 minutes and the longest was the so-called 100-years war between Britain and France. In real it lasted 116 years, ending in 1453.

After reading a lot about war and the casualties, I found the caution on www.didyouknow.org saying

War is not healthy for children and other living beings!