No hiding from horrors of war

No hiding from horrors of war

The Associated Press arti- cle in the Jan. 14 Vindicator was worth more than all the hypocritical outrage I’ve heard voiced thus far concerning four Marines urinating on dead Taliban.

In noting that “Soldiers have long understood that savagery begets savagery — or at least breeds indifference,” it couldn’t be more true. The problem, it seems to me, is that politicians, with or without voter support, continue to make wars for reasons far removed from the actual defence of our nation. They send men and women off to engage in war, the most savage of human endeavors, then piously wash their hands like so many Pontius Pilates when the result is savagery that may taint their electability.

We are horrified when dead Americans are dragged through Mogadishu. We are outraged when reporters are beheaded as a videotaped political statement. We decry the death of civilians when “surgical strikes” turn out to be less than clinical explosions of human bodies. Yet we continue to engage in the ultimate savagery of war with no more thought for the consequences than we give to the selection of a $4 latte. Then, when things get ugly, we point our self-righteous fingers at those we have sent to face these horrors as though they are villains.

There is no war but total war and war is always the destruction of life to achieve political goals. We would do well to be damned sure of our motives before entering into war or be damned for sure.

Jim Cartwright, Canfield

An assault on Mother Earth

The end of civilization as we know it isn’t about what’s happening above ground, it’s what we are doing below ground: drilling for oil and fracking for gas.

Man takes natural resources out of the earth, refines them and returns poisons back into the ground and atmosphere, poisoning the air and drinking water. God gave us a gem, Mother Earth, and man is turning it into an outhouse.

The 100,000 fracking wells on the eastern seaboard will make earth a ticking time bomb, just waiting for the shale beneath to start snapping, crackling and popping. And when the shale starts to crumble, the earth will rumble and the lawyers for the fracking companies will mumble, “you got your money per acre, so quit your grumbling.”

“Earthquakes? Are you kidding?” No, I’m not kidding.

Steve Kopa, Weirton, W. Va.