BIMBO CABIDOG
War is a monster
as anybody knows. The better option is always to turn the sword into
ploughshare or, in our contemporary times, the military-industrial complex into
haven of production for the basic needs of man.
But the makers
of war say it is the only way to triumph over evil, build a better world, or end
war itself. Since every would-be protagonist has his own good cause and better
world to fight for, the cycle of war goes on turning to perpetuity.
Finally, the
use of arms to resolve social contradictions defeats the very cause why it is purportedly
resorted, that is: the improvement of human life. At the conclusion of every
violent conflict, societies find themselves worse off than before. Decades of
peace are then needed to heal the wounds, get over the trauma, and rebuild from
the ashes.
World War II is
up to this day still the most devastating military conflict in human history. The
scale of it was unprecedented in any previous war.
The global
conflict involved the commitment of entire human and economic resources of
participating nations. It fudged the line that separated combatant from
non-combatant, and included all of the enemy’s territory in the zones of
battle. The military atrocities on civilians and, on the part of Nazi Germany, genocide
against Jews, gypsies and homos as a specific war aim made it the most unique
in modern times for unparalleled savagery.
It was also the
first time where a highly important determinant of the outcome was industrial
capacity. Towards its conclusion, two new devastatingly effective weapons surfaced:
the long-range rocket and the atomic bomb.
The United
States tested the latter on the two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In
the wink of an eye, each drop of the atom bomb decimated hundreds of thousands
of civilians who were incinerated by the blast. Communities were
instantly wiped out. No infrastructure remained standing in the horizon.
Worse cataclysms
than World War II may yet happen. But in that horrendous conflict, the statistics
of human and material expense are already mind-boggling. Three quarters of the
world’s population or 1.7 billion people from 61 countries took part. The war mobilized
a total of 110 million individuals for military service.
The Union of
Soviets and Socialist Republics (USSR) accounted for more than half of them.
Germany fielded 17 million, the United States of America 16 million. The conflict
also involved the largest number of active duty personnel at any time:
USSR–12,500,000, US – 12,245,000, Germany – 10,938,000, the British Empire –
5,720,000; Japan – 7,193,000, and China – 5,000,000.
By money spent,
it would be the most expensive with a combined cost of $1 trillion compared to other
wars. The US spent an estimated $341 billion. The Russian government calculated
that the USSR lost 30 percent of national wealth. The amount of loss to Nazi
exactions and looting in the Soviet Union and other German-occupied countries is
incalculable.
Technological advancement
inflicted unparalleled ferocity. The war saw bestiality and horror never hitherto
witnessed in the history of humankind. Civilians were mixed into the war zones
and targeted as parts of fighting fronts. They were hit by diseases,
malnutrition, and starvation. They suffered destruction of towns and cities, innumerable
injuries and deaths.
The loss of lives
appalls. The USSR chalked the highest toll at 20 million civilian and military
personnel killed including great numbers of Russians deliberately starved to
death in German prison camps. The Allied civilian losses went up to 40 million.
Civilian losses of the Axis powers numbered 11 million. Military deaths on both
sides numbered 19 million in Europe, and 6 million in the Asian theater under Japanese
aggression.
The unimaginable
scale of destruction and genocidal slaughter that war brings upon its zones of
engagement would continue until now despite sophisticated diplomacy and the
United Nation’s mechanisms at conflict management.
In countries, like
the US, the hawks always get the upper hand in decisions whether to launch or
not unilateral aggression on other countries. This was true in the decision to
wage war on Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mindless of
consequences, the bearing of arms prevails against the baring of cold reason
not to. Mindsets home in on the imperative to defeat the other side, to beat it
in the race if one needs to cut throat. Sober logic is defeated by the war mongers’
pretexts for going into it.
The Second
World War did not end all wars, but spun off other localized conflicts. The Philippines
for one remains a host to Asia’s longest running insurgency being waged by the
New People’s Army under the leadership of the Communist Party of the
Philippines. Like the other wars of the past, the communist armed struggle does
not exempt the uninvolved from its ravages, whether as total effect on the
country’s social and economic life, or inevitable harm inflicted by operations along
the fighting fronts.
The government’s
total war response attended by atrocities in military campaigns and militarization
has turned rural interiors into a swamp of terror and grinding hardships. Amid
the clashing forces, the local folks are caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand they are compelled by exigency to make friends or at least show
non-hostility with the armed elements lurking in the shadows. On the other hand,
they must also accommodate the civil-military intrusions into their communities
by security forces.
The “revolutionary
war,” as the communist leadership calls the insurgency, promises liberation from
the exploitative and oppressive social order under which the great masses of the
people are reeling. But it could not even mobilize them in their millions and deliver
the condition of complete victory for the promised radical change to happen.
The powers-that-be
composed of the dominant elite cliques in the country looks at a time horizon in
ending the armed challenge. But if the self-claimed revolutionaries couldn’t
graduate from even the first stage of winning the war – the so-called strategic
defensive, to convert the dream of political power into real McCoy, the
generals are getting boils from frustrating setbacks in their boasted timetables
at totally quelling the armed rebel challenge before they fade into retirement.
Thus, the war and
its deleterious effects fester with no end in sight. While the nation yet fails
to rise up from the condition of stunted growth and reproduction of socio-economic
crises generation after generation, and the people continue to lose opportunities
at development, energies for years are being drained on a conflict with no perceivable
resolution.
It is high time
now to call on both sides to take a fresh look at it, and train their sights on
a different non-militaristic approach. Almost half a century of warfare,
counting the NPA insurgency alone, has not brought it near any victory or rapprochement.
The vow on the part of government to bring the full might of the Armed Forces
and crush it for good has had several lapsed deadlines with no decisive
conclusion.
Isn’t winning
by any side, with the people’s popular rejection of armed warfare and the current
realities of it being aided by highly advanced science and technology, already wishful
thinking? Meanwhile, the opportunity loss for the country in proceeding with
peaceful options at growth, the havoc and devastation an open-ended war brings,
and the Filipino lives claimed on both sides pile up.
The people
demand peace, not from any political settlement but from consideration of their
just clamor and real-time wellbeing. It is fair enough for the National
Democratic Front, the umbrella organization of the CPP-NPA and their
affiliates, to listen. It is also fair enough for the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines to be guided by the sentiment of the vast majority.
Both parties,
claiming to advance the interest of the people, can prove true to it by taking
the option least paid attention or merely ignored before: the cessation of
hostilities sans the condition of political settlement yet.
The quieting of
guns can now pave the way to the peaceful resolution of the causes of conflict
through the democratic space and means available under the prevailing political
order. Let an enlightened, politically conscious and organized citizenry then take
over the pursuit of even radical reforms. The people can use for good measure
the strength of their numbers at effecting pivotal changes in the socio-political
structure.
The people have
suffered enough over the past half a century of internal warfare. What they
have been going through now merit respite. The causes Filipino brothers and
sisters have been fighting on in the ranks of the insurgency as well as soldiery
can be far better addressed by the dynamics of development and nation building in
a climate of peace and mutual trust.
The great majority
of the people deserve to be heard and have a part in the decisions that shape
their destiny. Such should not just be a matter of whose self-proclaimed agenda
or programme among the parties to the conflict shall win. It is not for a messianic few to determine what’s good for a country of 100 plus million citizens.
The masses
should be relied to provide the guarantee in ironing out age-old injustices through
non-violent political contention. After going through so much pain, loss and destruction
from a protracted period of armed belligerence, they should now be given the
chance to try methods and processes at overhauling the conditions and
situations of their existence with no resort to arms.
The tragedy of having
been at war for almost all of the past century is enough reason not to wage it
anymore. End it with no conditions, why not?
