Warlike Thoughts

I savored the rare privilege of watching a World War II documentary. It strove to recreate the keynote events of the war through the memoirs of the soldiers and civilians who lived (many who died) through it all.

Unsurprisingly, the program reproduced the usual obfuscations to obscure the real motivations behind the war. Someone needs to teach us some real history. Another big failure of the program was the tendency to minimize the “gore” of war, for example by giving D-Day a relative whitewash, a mere mention. Which serious review of World War II can afford to ignore D-Day? to Photoshop the events of Normandy? FAIL.

However, despite its shortcomings, the documentary made an effective, full-color exposition of one fact: “War is a dirty ugly rotten business.” That was a quote of one young American soldier fighting in the Pacific "theatre". Another wondered what he, a farm boy from the American heartland, was doing thousands of miles away from home, killing Japanese.

Death and destruction stood out vividly the footage of blitzed London, ruined Stalingrad, burning German cities, firebombed Berlin. Makes you wonder what could possibly justify so much desolation.  

I’m not the only nut on the internet predicting dark days ahead, and I’m not pulling it out of my socks either. If World War III is gonna happen (highly likely soon), then, judging by the way WWII went… let’s just say we have a problem.