War

In the past 10 days or so we have watched the movies "The Green Zone" and "The Hurt Locker". Both are stories about the current war we are in and are very interesting.

I will spare you any details or major reviews of the movies, but I thought "The Hurt Locker" was much better... "The Green Zone" did have two good points, one made by Matt Damon (or rather his character...) that "the reasons we go to war always matter" and one made by his informant "what happens here is not up to you".  I agree with both of those points, I think the reason we go to war is always important. If we go to war based on information that we know to be false or just because we feel like it, it makes us look like a war hungry country, a bully looking for a fight. I also agree that it shouldn't be up to us what happens in other countries. Not that we shouldn't step in when gross crimes against humanity are committed, but we are not the World Police (despite the awesome movie, "Team America: World Police" :) ).

"The Hurt Locker" was an interesting look at battle from a different point of view. I really enjoyed this movie. I think it would be hard to live in a place where there are bombs everywhere and always being told what to do by people who don't speak your language. I would be a TERRIBLE bomb diffuser. High stress situations are not my thing, but I guess that is why there are different jobs for different people.

Anyway, whenever I see a film about war it gets me thinking about how interesting war actually is. Here are two sets of people willing to fight to the DEATH to protect what they believe in. And both of them think they are right. And neither one of them is willing to see anything from the others point of view... it is just very interesting. At least to me. And I'm not saying that war isn't worth fighting. I believe there are some things worth fighting for, like my own freedom. But, I don't believe that I have the ability to make those choices for another person or another country. I can't decide what is worth you fighting for, nor can I decide what is best for another country. Something that works here (like Democracy... for example..) may not be something that works everywhere, or even something that everyone in the world wants. Just a thought.

I guess this is also spurred by us watching the History channel series, "The Story of Us". I was just watching the episode about WWII... can you imagine fighting in that war?!? War was so different... I think in that war a lot of the soldiers (if not all of them) really believed in the job they were doing. But so did the Germans... they thought they were fighting for right. Isn't that interesting? Maybe I'm just crazy, but I think that is just amazingly fascinating.

And I don't take war lightly. My father is a veteran, and I remember him being gone for tours of duty and war... I never liked it as a kid and seeing my mom worry was not fun either. But, I just find it to be interesting...

Alright, off to bed. Enough deep stuff. I hope everyone has a great week!