{"id":44608,"date":"2023-11-06T14:26:45","date_gmt":"2023-11-06T22:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=44608"},"modified":"2023-11-06T14:26:45","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T22:26:45","slug":"violence-never-settles-anything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2023\/11\/06\/violence-never-settles-anything\/","title":{"rendered":"Violence Never Settles Anything"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

The ongoing Israeli attacks against Gaza put me to mind of one of my favorite science fiction books as a teenager, Robert Heinlein\u2019s Starship Troopers<\/em>. In that book, a military veteran and teacher of \u201chistory and moral philosophy\u201d is discussing violence with high school students. One of them blithely says violence never solves anything, which draws this memorable response from her hard-nosed instructor:<\/p>\n

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue \u2013 and thoroughly immoral \u2013 doctrine that ‘violence never settles anything,’ I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.<\/em><\/p>\n

In Heinlein\u2019s book, humans were at war with an alien species and those who chose military service to fight against \u201cthe bugs\u201d got the right to vote and participate as citizens in government.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In a fight to the death, Heinlein suggested, the only choice right-thinking humans had was violence and a commitment to the total destruction of the enemy. There was no other solution.<\/p>\n

How might this apply to Gaza? Members of Hamas are Heinlein\u2019s enemy bugs; in fact, all of Gaza is apparently an alien land that must be ravaged as the bugs are either killed or driven off the land. Violence will settle the issue of who controls Gaza, and by extension the West Bank, once and for all, with the IDF serving as Israel\u2019s \u201cStarship Troopers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. My memory flashback to Heinlein was painful. It was not in any way a vote in favor of massive violence by Israel to solve the Gaza \u201cproblem.\u201d Rather, I think Heinlein\u2019s insight captures the mindset of those in authority in Israel at this moment. Kill or drive off the \u201cbugs.\u201d Settle this. No ceasefires, no pauses, no compromises. Total victory through massive violence is the decisive option.<\/p>\n

In this mindset they are enabled by the U.S. president and Congress, who boast loudly of having Israel\u2019s back, come what may. Indeed, the president and Congress eagerly wish to provide Israel all the weapons it needs to kill or drive off the \u201cbugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heinlein\u2019s \u201cStarship Troopers\u201d remains a controversial book for its depiction of a thoroughly militarized neo-fascist society, a vision captured in Paul Verhoeven\u2019s movie version<\/a> of the same name, a biting satire of militarism run amuck, though the satire is apparently lost on more than a few viewers.<\/p>\n

To echo Heinlein, violence certainly did settle things for the dodo and for the passenger pigeon. They are no more. Yet it\u2019s also true that those who live by the sword will often die by it. And if that sword proves to be a nuclear one, we as humans may yet be joining the dodo in extinction.<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools. He writes at Bracing Views<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. The ongoing Israeli attacks against Gaza put me to mind of one of my favorite science fiction books as a teenager, Robert Heinlein\u2019s Starship Troopers. In that book, a military veteran and teacher of \u201chistory and moral philosophy\u201d is discussing violence with high school students. One of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-44608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"Or does it?"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44608"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44628,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44608\/revisions\/44628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44608"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=44608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}