Horrors of war: Do we need wars?

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Horrors of war: Do we need wars?

“War is organized murder, and nothing else,” says Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier of the World War I. There are very few sensible people in the world who would not agree with him.

War was, is and will always be the bane of human civilization. Wars are usually fought due to anger, jealousy and frustration of a group of self-seeking people. They have caused loss of millions of innocent lives and immense misery to humanity from time immemorial.

To satisfy their ego, the leaders of the victorious nation destroy the defeated nation’s natural resources, cities, towns, villages and monuments. During the previous centuries wars affected the two fighting nations and its alleys (except the two world wars). Thanks to the technological advancements, today a war has the potential to wipe off the human race from the face of the planet.

Women, elderly and children suffer the most during wars. They are murdered mercilessly. Women are raped. Even places of worship and hospitals are not spared during senseless firing and bombardment. People are still dying or getting injured due to triggering of unexploded weapons in countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Earlier wars were fought in battlefields. Today so called civilized nations are attacking innocent civilians in their so called “War to end all wars.” Even a sensible child knows that a fight can never end a fight. It is really a shameful situation to say the least.

Wars break families and leave scars on individuals and societies. They separate child from its mother, husband from his wife, etc. It has a traumatic effect on survivors who would have lived through the horrors of war.

People of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still suffering the effects of atom bombs dropped in the year 1945. During the Second World War, within the first two to four months of the bombings, 90,000 to 166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 people in Nagasaki lost their lives.

Wars motivated by racial hatred are worse. Jews were subjected to immense torture during the Second World War. Under the leadership of Hitler, Nazi Germany committed genocide never heard of before in the history of humanity. Around six million Jews were tortured and killed mercilessly.

Jewish prisoners in concentration camps were tattooed with numbers, as if they were products in a factory. Most of them were executed in gas chambers. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured. Some of them were even used for medical experiments. It is unfortunate that torturing of POW still continues.

We have organizations like the United Nations which are supposed to be working towards world peace. How far the UN has been successful in this endeavor, each and every citizen of the world has to decide for himself or herself.

Unless and until each and every individual, all over the world, decides to shun violence and to work towards peace, prosperity and well-being of the world, there will be wars and more horrors of war.

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