War Games - April 21 2024

 

War Games

April 21 2024

You get the picture.

Ram-rod generals

in epaulettes and ribbons,

overseeing

the theatre of war;

a big table

perfectly to scale

where toy soldiers play.

Sticks pushing battleships,

troops advancing,

camouflaged tanks

attacking from the flank.

War games

      ... tit-for-tat

               ... the lunacy of MAD.

But on the field of battle

there are no strategies,

or even tactics;

it’s brothers in arms,

sweat and blood,

kill or be killed;

steaming guts

spilled out in the sand.

But the further away

the easier it looks.

Sanitized dispatches,

casualties

reduced to numbers

like profit and loss.

I think back to Dr. Strangelove

and the secret bunker

under the Pentagon,

in which the telling line

no fighting in the war room

is guaranted a laugh.

Generals who have fought

never want war.

The call to arms

comes from well behind the lines;

the pencil pushers

politicians

and yellow press,

the contractors and lobbyists

with dollars in their eyes,

the ideologues

who answer black-and-white

with ready platitudes.

But not the mothers.

Not the veterans,

who are all damaged

somehow or other,

even if their bodies are whole.

And not the pacifists and lovers,

which is absolutely everyone

who’s ever fought.

Who know

that in war

everyone loses,

because in the end

even the victors

who raise the flag and throw a parade

never truly win.

This actually started with thoughts of baseball, of all things: that the further you are from the field of play, the easier it looks.

Then that image of the general staff gathered around iconic table somehow came to me. I thought of war-mongering commentators, contrasting them with cautious generals, who came up the ranks and know first-hand the horrors and cost of war. It’s hard not to think of these things when it seems the world is at war — Israel/Hamas; Russia/Ukraine; Sudan; and the smouldering conflict in the Congo we rarely hear about — especially when it wasn’t so long ago we were talking about “the end of history”.

The dark comedy Dr. Strangelove may be my favourite film of all time. George C. Scott and Peter Sellers chew up the scenery in the most delectable way. So it was very satisfying to get that reference in. One of the most memorable lines of all time!