The Theme of War is a crime of passion not of logic. Logic is and will continue to be humanities’ greatest asset. Yet as a society in general we allow ourselves to revert to instinctive passionate behavior, instead of the rational and calculated ones that we observe today.
As we look at Robert S. McNamara’s “The Fog of War”, discusses the possible necessity of escalating troop deployments after the confusion of the Gulf of Tonkin incident and whether or not it actually happened because of missiles attacks. The belief and seeing are often both wrong and a “just war” can only be fought to “redress” the wrong suffered. Though the United States had put themselves in the “skin of the Soviets” during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the government failed to do so with Vietnam due to a lack of understanding of the Vietnamese’s position. The conflict in Vietnam was seen as a civil war in the eyes of the Vietnamese, not as a Cold War battle that the U.S. or the Soviets thought it was. Admiral Chester Nimitz is responsible for the invasion of the Philippines in October, where he allowed it to proceed because the invasion fleet was already at sea and could not be recalled. The result was a pointless and bloody fiasco.
Looking at how we can’t change human nature, McNamara refers to how complex war is the inability of the human mind to fully comprehend all of those complexities at one time. We look at “The Hardest War” where many mourners were wearing lapel flags or red, white, and blue ribbons. E.B Sledge says “you know patriotism is easy, its war that’s hard and exactly how hard is war.” So how do we look at solving war?
Should one use proportionality as a guideline in war? McNamara poses the question of whether or not it was necessary to drop two atomic bombs on Japan when they were destroying so much already with firebombing. Can it be said by the 14 million tons of bombs been dropped on the Japanese position to no apparent effect except to the countryside and civilian population that the culture of Okinawa had simply been erased from the earth by bombing and shelling. By this the violence used in war must be proportional by using force that is not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered. Will the human race not eliminate war in centuries to come? Can countries reduce the brutality of war and the level of killing?
Among this mass of arguments about targeted killing, the genuine issues of principle are whether self-defense requires it and proportionality permits it. The question of where the zone of combat ends and civilian rules begin is important, but it is a question of line-drawing, not of moral principle. If self-defense is a just cause of war, and if killing is necessary for self-defense, then
Fighting the Elements: The Road to Belgium Fog is a condition taken for granted during the common day, but is a compelling term in literature if examined in a scope of depth analysis. Although some may say fog is just a cloud lying low, it truly is more than that. Fog is formed as a result of two different temperatures, which differentiate the atmosphere between earth and sky, forming a barrier we know as fog. In Findley’s novel, The Wars, fog plays a role in the second book as it reflects the situation…
“The effective war film is often the one in which the action begins after the war, when there is nothing but ruins and desolation everywhere…” Francois Truffaut Francois Truffaut continued on to say that Alain Resnais’ Night and Fog, made in 1955, was the “greatest film ever made”. The 30-minute film based on the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi concentration camps after World War II combines Resnais’ own cinematography with original images and footage of the captives in their unfathomable…
a military theorist, and today is recognised as an integral figure in the evolution of military strategy, for many of his ideas are still prominent and embedded in the modern day strategies used today. Clausewitz is renowned for his famous work On War (Vom Kriege), in which he records his observation in analytical form, shaped by military and political considerations. His writings come from 39…
soldier during the Vietnam War and now has to tell his daughter, Kathleen. The author emphasizes, “He told me that it was a good kill, that I should shape up and stop staring and ask myself what the dead man would’ve done if things were revised.” Based on this, it can be concluded that the narrator is haunted by the fact he had killed a soldier. The fact that O’Brien’s friend, Kiowa, has been trying to get him out of feeling upset by reminding him that they were part of a war. The author also implies…
History 1005 Assignment: A Fog of War Major Themes and Key Points: Weapons can destroy society. Missiles terribly close to destroying all of Cuba. War and conflict. Proportionality should be a guideline at war. Without proportionality the world could be destroyed at war. Many bombs dropped on Japan. President Johnson needed McNamara to come up with a plan to kill the Vietnamese. We see what we want to believe. Declared war on tyranny and aggression. Vietnam thought America was trying to colonize…
glooming fog covering the mansion as we see in the establishing shot suggests that the house contains a mystery. In this essay I will be looking at the opening scene for mise-en-scene, sound ;camera shots and how it creates an eerie atmosphere. Mise-en-scene The first thing we see is an establishing shot showing the mansion. The fog surrounding it makes the house dark and gloomy .the denotation is a house in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and fog. The connotation is the fog implies…
Scott Wheeler History C 5/11/14 Chemical Warfare Chemical warfare was introduced to the people during the World War I. The French shot tear gas rifle grenades at their enemies to stun them. The first major gas attack was at the second battle of Ypres, Belgium, on April 22,1915 using chorine gas released from cylinders was used by the Germans in an assault in trench wars. The gas was very effective and could kill 5000 people and scaring 10,000 also prevented the assault. At the third battle…
reality that is the desolation of the war and the chains of religion. The statement that emotion is expressed through external factors is to an extent, true and this can be demonstrated in T.S. Eliot’s poems Journey of the Magi, 1927 and The Hollow Men, 1925 and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1915. Eliot’s works revolved around the Modernist movement and provided an avant-garde perspective where humanity was questioned due to the horrific brutality of World War I and increasing capitalism. To the…
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is filled with fear and sadness. A good example of showing these certain emotions would be from the lines 15 through 21: “The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window panes… Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.” This quote shows a great perspective of humanity shortly after the war. The fog represents the pollution in the air due to the advancement of technology and the feeling of nausea that humanity was faced with. The same atmosphere is seen in “The…
is depicted as it really is in all of its crude and graphicness. We are delivered the real deal, the nitty gritty, that which Hollywood “movies” tend to leave out, (the stories of common folk, the victims of war, greed, and disparity). All of these characteristics are evidenced in Night and Fog, Nasty Girl, Baader Meinhoff Complex, and Hate. First form of representation of reality- expressionism was evident in all four films in that the audience is not told straight out what to feel but rather let…