War is our Destiny

It's been a part of human civilization since human civilization began, and even before then. The earliest cave drawings of our prehistoric, stone age ancestors depict two things, man hunting animals, and man killing man. Have we really changed that much? Are we really that far evolved above our savage predecessors? Look at the world around you.

The Romans brought civilization, agriculture, literacy and trade to a barbaric world, but they didn't bring these things as a gift. They had to bring it at the point of the sword. Alexander brought unity and learning to an untamed world, but he had to do it at the head of a conquering army. Napoleon promised the people of Europe reform and unity, but in the end only brought them death and destruction. America turned Japan into an industrial superpower, but only after dropping two atomic bombs on them. And the story goes on and on.

Peace is not a natural human state. When peace exists, it is brought about by force or threat of force, and it is maintained by force, or threat of force. That's why we have police officers. People don't just naturally live in peace, someone has to make sure they do. Take any relatively peaceful city on earth and remove all law enforcement, and I can guarantee you it won't be peaceful for long. I will turn into a war zone.

Everyone loves to point the fingers at the Americans and George W. Bush, but would we be any different if we were the most powerful nation on Earth. I can guarantee you that our government would act much more aggressively if we had the most powerful military on Earth. It's not about Americans, or Russians, or Chinese, or Romans or whatever. It's about human nature. Not individual humans, but rather human societies. We, collectively, act very differently that we do as separate people. When we have power, we like to use it. We can't help it. The temptation is simply to great to resist. History repeats itself over and over again.

The German philosopher Fredriche Nietzshe was convinced that the reason why peoples of different races and cultures had such a difficult time peacefully co- existing is because they were never meant to peacefully co-exist. Humans need an enemy. They need someone they can point at and say "those are the bad guys, it's all their fault". We require opposition. It's us against them.

We can protest war as much as we want, but I'm afraid it will always be here. It's been with us from the very beginning, and it will be with us until the very end. Peace on Earth is a beautiful dream, but that's all it is, a dream. War is our destiny.