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2018-12-06 Africa Subsaharan

Durotoye says Boko Haram still alive only because powerful people are making money from counter-insurgency

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Posted by Fred 2018-12-06 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top
File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)

#1 Yup. War is a racket.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2018-12-06 00:36|| 2018-12-06 00:36|| Front Page Top

#2 In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.

But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life -- the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This -- although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense -- is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2018-12-06 00:39|| 2018-12-06 00:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Herb, you are absolutely correct. Back when war was black and white Bertholdt Brecht wrote about where it was going in Mother Courage. It is a racket, as inhuman as it might sound, there's no reason to feel sorry for those who insist on living on the edges of it.

Posted by M. Murcek 2018-12-06 05:26|| 2018-12-06 05:26|| Front Page Top

#4 "There's war / plague / piracy / tyranny here. I guess we'll just have to stay." I'm supposed to feel sorry for that POV?

Posted by M. Murcek 2018-12-06 05:28|| 2018-12-06 05:28|| Front Page Top

#5 We keep getting told we have to "contain" Russian / Iranian / Islamist aggression by means that have been failing for half a century. MAD kept the Soviet Union in check. The ChiComs have a different outlook, may not care about MAD.

Build Prompt Global Strike, het it down around 18 minutes. Design / test / develop / build every possible missile defense technology. No 355 ship Navy. Too damn bad. No 6th generation fighter. Too damn bad. Spend taxpayer dollars to defend taxpayers, not to make Beltway contractors fat on offensive weapons that our politicians won't use anyway.

Start now.

Posted by M. Murcek 2018-12-06 05:37|| 2018-12-06 05:37|| Front Page Top

#6 There's a comfortable career, world travel, and prestige in peace processing.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2018-12-06 06:13|| 2018-12-06 06:13|| Front Page Top

#7 Nice dissertation, Hemingway. In the future, you might wanna cite your plagiarism = George Orwell

Posted by Frank G 2018-12-06 08:35|| 2018-12-06 08:35|| Front Page Top

#8 nice catch Frank

Posted by 746 2018-12-06 11:29|| 2018-12-06 11:29|| Front Page Top

#9 It wasn't plagiarism genius, the quote about the Party's slogan being "War is Peace" didn't tip you off?

Posted by Herb McCoy 2018-12-06 11:52|| 2018-12-06 11:52|| Front Page Top

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