Perspective of War

Yasmin Colonetti – 12HMB

Society thinks that war is a solution, however if we think and do some research about it we will see that it just destroys nations and brings insecurity. Scientists describe humans, as rational beings, that is, we have the ability to think before acting. However, war shows how we can be animals, irrational beings. We kill our own species because of power and political interests. Our future generations may not know the reality of peace. This is because for some of us the war is our lives. The war brings poverty and hunger which directly affects the population. Also there are no winners in war; we will always lose something that was really special for us. Because these feelings are inexpressible, language fails and we start enmities.

One of the main causes of hunger and poverty are the wars that destroy entire populations, bringing fear and agony even to the youngest of people. World War II shows how much a war can devastate an entire world. It involved more than 30 countries and resulted in more than 50 million military and civilian deaths; some historians estimate as high as 85 million dead. Even after years of rebuilding cities there was still hunger and deprivation in these countries. It increased the poverty in the countries because they had to rebuild their nation again and without money people cannot buy food, with no food people starve. In this case it was only possible for all of these countries overcome poverty because of the United States, however, because of that, there was a large increase in foreign debt. Charles Sumner stated how much money we spend on wars to destroy our nations instead of building them:” Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a school house in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.” From this we can imagine how much money we citizens pay as taxes for it to be applied when the war happens, instead of being invested in education and health.

Unfortunately, in war both sides will always lose. Our society considers that there is a winner in war, although if we think about it, this is not correct. On both sides there are devastated families crying for the death of a loved one; in war we fear, because we cannot know what will happen tomorrow. We should realize that the families in both sides lose people, fathers, mothers, friends, and important people for them, who lost their lives fighting in a war that was not even theirs. How can we sleep at night knowing that we made these people fight, even though they had nothing against the other country? Our world today is selfish; we stopped thinking about others and how they feel about it. “The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than about peace, more about killing than we know about living”- Omar Bradley. “What a cruel thing is war: to separate and destroy families and friends, and mar the purest joys and happiness God has granted us in this world; to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbours, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.”- Robert E. Lee, letter to his wife, 1864.These two quotes represent how much war make us lose, if it is not someone loved it is money or time. Most of us have forgotten the meaning of peace.