To liberate, not to conquer

I DVR'd the Meet the Natives short series and finished watching the final episode tonight. My dad's friend Bill had some interesting thoughts about one of the episodes. Here's what the show is about: "The show is called “Meet the Natives” which has these tribesmen going across America exploring what our country’s all about. These men have one goal or “mission” in mind, and that is to deliver a message personally to President Obama. Their message is simple, yet crucial in their minds, otherwise their mission is a failure…..but the message is simply, “bring about peace throughout the world.”

Anyway, for their final week in America, they stayed with a DC family in which both parents are soldiers. The chief asked the father why they go to war. The soldier's answer was basically that he doesn't really know, but they just go because they're told and they don't ask questions. They just do what they're told.

Individuals decide to what extent they follow the politics of war, but I wondered if there was a better answer out there. It almost seems like too big of a question to try and grapple with, and I really don't know the answer either. One thing I do remember though - a couple of years ago, my ethics professor showed a black and white video of the London Blitz of 1940. I guess Hitler thought he was going to conquer the world and thought he would demoralize the British by leveling the city of London to dust. And level it, he did. I remember watching the intense struggle the British underwent in defending themselves, being totally outnumbered, hit over and over again and yet not giving up, though the people had to live underground to survive amidst the constant fear and terror.

My professor was a staunch pacifist, hating everything about war. I think he showed the movie as an example of the awful effects of war. The movie touched me so much, but the one big question on my mind was, "why was there no one helping them fight to defend themselves?" They needed help so badly. My question was answered simply, "The US wasn't involved in the war at that point."

So, war is never a good thing, but is it sometimes necessary? In my high school dance class, there was a German foreign-exchange student. I once asked her what the general opinion of America was, as far as she knew. She said the opinion is that we stick our noses in everybody's business and we should just keep to ourselves and mind our own business. That could just be a german upbringing, or it could be more widespread than Germany, my perception is that it's more widespread than that. But there are differing opinions on what our involvement should be.

Going back to the show - the five men found themselves in the heart of D.C., trying to spread their message of peace, and found the following engraving on one of the monuments: "Americans came to liberate, not to conquer; to restore freedom and to end tyranny."