Courage
Last night on Enough Rope Andrew Denton interviewed a Turkish filmmaker, Tolga Ornek, who has recently completed a documentary on Galliopoli. It would be a fascinating movie to see, having seen the Peter Weir movie more than once and having been inculcated with the story for many years, but more than that, I was impressed by some of the things Mr. Ornek said, notably that his relationship with Australians has always been profoundly positive (well, mostly), and that he has looked at himself in relation to the courage the soldiers, on either side, exhibited during World War I, admitting his doubt that he could do as they did. As frank as that admission is, it better reflects his character in light of the nature of war as it has come to be more so perhaps than any actual lack of commitment and bravery inherent to him.

World War I was the last "non-political" war, and maybe the first "ideological" war, at the same time. Unlike the Second World War, and unlike any war I can think of in the Cold War era (and certainly unlike any being conducted today, at least those involving non-Third World nations), World War I was about territory as much as it was about the shape of global power. Germany sought to reshape its destiny in Europe, Turkey sought to position itself regionally as a force with which to be reckoned by any others wanting a part of commerce there, and the others lined up accordingly. There were atrocities, perhaps none more so than the use of poison gas, and trench warfare, aerial bombardment, long-range cannon bombardment all contributed in creating modern war, but ideology wasn't at the center. Once facsism came into the picture, and communism, and race hatred, war became a tool of philosophy, in a manner of speaking, and it's stayed that way.

At least since Vietnam, speaking as an American, when my government asks for war, I ask why, and in asking don't always get an answer sufficient to the cause espoused. Sometimes, like Bosnia or Haiti, soliders are deployed for a humanitarian intervention where opposing armies are so intractable as to require force to separate them and create peace. Somalia and Rwanda are examples where the determination to apply force failed, and shamefully, but Kosovo worked, to the credit of those who acted. In Afghanistan, a cruel, repressive government that had allied itself with international terrorists was recalictrant in facing international law, and the United States acted for its own protection and for the good of all, and with considerable restraint. All bets since, however, have been off, and the question - why - remains unanswered.

I don't trust ideology as a motivator for war. Like Mr. Ornek, I don't think I would be able to display the resolve of that "lost generation," but I don't think either that that's what's being asked of me.