Sep 9, 2006 4:33:26 PM cite

Hello Angela: You have a very good question. Because of that ugly part of history, I would like to focus on the future. I think, the more people speak out and spread the word, the better. One grain of sand will not make a beach. But many, many yes. We just cannot trust anymore on the "work" done so far by politicians and industry leaders, since they are still doing a bad job in being socially and environmentally responsible. As an example, just see what is happening right now in Darfur, Sudan, since 3 years! Who is doing something effectively, other than bla-bla? Nobody. We have to make people conscious about social and environmental responsibility: Friends, family, colleagues, bosses, neighbors, people we get in touch with. Right now I'm writing a book about peace, social rights and the wellbeing of mother earth. Just to spread out the word and encourage others to "join the club". I just read a very good book from Deepak Chopra: Peace is the way. Best regards. Alf Giebler

by alfgiebler

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva: It is the fact; I don’t think it is tolerated. It is very tragic, because children and women, civilian people die. So many people, children die. We can think about minefields and stunted children, whose life has been ruined by the war, or about victims of a chemical war, of terrorism, or about children of Beslan, killed on their first day in the school, when many of them came with flowers for the first time to discover a new world. To kill those lives is terrible, inadmissible! Yet some groups do a war in the war and destroy social and political structures from within. But actually it is a political fight of “kings”, and people suffer. Here we speak about civilians, but soldiers, young boys eighteen, or nineteen years old are civilians too. There are wars in Africa, where children are given arms and sent to fight. They are civilian victims too. They are not soldiers; they are trained to be machines, predators. But they are still human beings. It is another experience, and there are organisations which work with such children, who are victims of this crime trained to kill and to be child-soldiers. And psychologists work with it. They show that they are just normal children being toys in hands of manipulation oriented people.

by Antoschka - Ekaterina Moshaeva

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Abbas Beydoun: What we should call killing civilians? Is not that terrorism? Should we consider it as a secondary result from the justice and democratic wars? This carelessness of civilians is really terrifying and it makes us to believe that topics are mixed and we still did not achieve moral laws for wars and other cases.

by Abbas Beydoun

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Alvaro Restrepo: Why is this tolerated? For the same reason as hunger is tolerated by humanity. We have to think about the difference of combatants and non combatants. As I said I am living in a country with a not declarated civil war. And the combatants are not other people then the adolescents, Colombians and unemployed people from the same social class. The people who are really fighing are thus not the powerful and neither the sons of the powerful. They only finance war. But the killed people are always the most poor ones and the most weak ones that find in war a way of surviving. That is why I think that the combatants and the non combatants are all civil people. In some way those who don’t have salary get to be a part of an armed group and they are simply victims of a society that expulsed them and that obligated them to enter into the abyss of death. The civil population and those who don’t intervene in war are victims of those civilians that feel obligated to give their life and their bodys. They don’t have their ideals, they only feel the necessity of surviving.

by Alvaro Restrepo

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Ana Lucy Bengochea:

by Ana Lucy Bengochea

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Angela you know, I’m not exactly sure if there’s been a dramatic increase in civilian death. There’s been very little recording in the earlier parts of our blemished history of conflict just how many civilians do die in conflict. But you know it brings to mind this unfortunate term which has been used and bandied about in the Western media called collateral damage, and it just appears to me to be a persistent devaluing of human life. But I’m not too sure whether in fact that’s increased. I just think we need to understand that the people who are waging war have no interest in the living. For them we all are expendable elements. Whether we are soldiers, whether we are civilians, whether we are strong, whether we are weak, we are all expendable. We are all negotiable. That is the nature of war. So I’m not exactly sure whether it has increased or decreased. The nature of war is that your humanity is negotiable. And if it presents an obstacle, it can be removed.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: You know, Angela, I ask the same question many times. I don’t know if you knew that but I come from the land on top of the world in the land of the Eskimos when war has never been fought for any reason. So it’s really quite interesting to travel the world where war is happening. I was just across from Sri Lanka in December in the mainland of India where your people are taking sides and killing each other for land, a very small territory on Earth. When my people who lives the largest land on Earth, the land of the Eskimos, they have never fought war. And then on top of that in the last 100 years as you so rightfully stated more people have been killed in the war and then it seems like nobody is doing anything to stop these wars. You’re right, you’re right, many are doing effort to stop the war. But still many are creating wars. It does not matter how they call it, how they justify it, what they do with it, it’s still a war. And it still kills people. It is as though human life means nothing. Angela, for a piece of land? There is only one Earth and mankind is a citizen as it is stated by [Ba-how-la]. And how can you and I fight for that? It belongs to all of us. It belongs to you as it belongs to others in your land. Enjoy the beauty of your land and live that beauty within you. And prosper in your land. That is the way for you and for everyone else on Earth. War is senseless and should be eliminated. Not by the United Nations, not by your government but by you. I will help you. Thank you.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: The question of who tolerates it and who does not has to be asked because the people who tolerate it are the people who are making the decisions that lead us into wars that are, as the question points out, increasingly leading to civilian death. The basic proportion of military soldiers, people actively involved in a conflict versus civilians being killed in war has gone from roughly 90% to 10% at the beginning of the 20th century to today now being 90% civilians and 10% military. Now, of course, you also have to ask the question of those military deaths and whether any moral distinction can be made between the soldiers who are unjustly also the victims of war and the civilians who are the victims of war. But, most people know or they in fact don’t tolerate the growth of civilian deaths. Most people feel anger, outrage, and despair. The question is do they feel that they can do something about it? Do they feel that they can change it? Do they feel that governments will respond to their concerns? Do they feel that they can organize and make change? And really that, I think, is where the gap exists, not in the degree of toleration, but the degree in mobilization, organization and protest.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala: Angela, the thing is civilians are always voiceless and powerless. That is why they have to tolerate the deaths, tolerate all the deaths as sprung up on all the losers. So they are always -- these people are tolerant group and they I think that they also -- as I told you they are powerless, voiceless and they have to tolerate and I also think they do not understand what is their rights. So, how to defend themselves, where do they go to ask for help or get to defend themselves. So, this is also one of the things Angela.

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: I think that we have seen an increase in civilian death because we are being told not to value life. In case of a war, where loss of life is talked about as collateral damage, with deaths of women, men, children, meaning of people is reported as collateral damage, it numbs us. It takes away something very important and vital from us where human beings are nothing but a collateral damage. We are not yet talking about numbers, we are not talking about lives destroyed, we are not talking about families destroyed; but we are basically talking about just collateral damage. It’s just numbing because we are not seeing a face; it is distant. The other thing that is happening is in situations of war, people at conflict are so made out to be the other; people are taking sides instead of taking side of humanity, instead of taking side of peace, instead of taking side of wanting a better world. We have decided to paint everything as the other. And when our interest is not seeing painted as with the other, it is easy to accept deaths of civilians. It is easy to accept the lives that we are told in the name of self-defense, in the name of promoting security, it means making the other insecure because we are being told that our security is not tied with the security of the other. And that is a recipe for continued conflicts and war situations and deaths of civilians because we are not talking about the loss of human life. We are not talking about the loss of dreams, aspirations of people; what we are talking about is what’s called collateral damage.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: This question is complex, has different sides. Very interesting question. Why is it tolerated? Again, I would say by whom is it tolerated? It is certainly not tolerated by enlightened, awakened citizens who live in compassion and care and see the tragedy of war and genocide and all forms of violence. The question again is symptomatic. It’s not just only the last one hundred years in terms of civilian death. And what do we mean by war? A war in the wider generic sense has been in all different forms, forms of genocide and the mutilation of people, humans by one another. This kind of war mentality and the culture of war that comes from an egocentric, ego-based form of being a human being, which is inherently violent, has always been promoting civilian death in this generic sense. So I’d like to see the question in this wider sense of increased civilian death and the tragedy of that. And the idea of war in the more generic sense, as a pattern of violence systemically always inscribed with an ego-consciousness. So, that yes, it’s intolerable and should not be tolerated. And isn’t tolerated by awakened enlightened citizens who understand the tragedy of war and of the culture of war. The ego-mental culture that promotes war, including war within oneself. We fail to see that when we are in the ego-mind, we are self divided. And we are in a battle within ourselves, as some of our great epics and teachings have shown, for example the text of the Bhagavad-Gita that finds Arjuna at war with his own family, but at war within himself. When we are at war within ourselves, it reflects a war with the other outside. So, in a way, we are all civilians. And all soldiers and all citizens are in that civilian status and are all victims of that kind of culture. I think that’s what's interesting about this question.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: It is sad to say that civilians have now become the commodities of war and there is a trend in warfare towards the intentional targeting of civilians. It is the fastest way to create fear in the hearts and in the minds of the populace. And it becomes a very powerful tool, fear becomes a powerful tool, in the hands of those who are perpetuating this violence, this death to control the populace. So it is, it can oftentimes be a matter of political expediency, the achievement of ideological ends, but it should never be tolerated, the death of innocent people and in situations of war the most vulnerable segments of the society, the women and children, offer [speaker here misspoke "offer" for "often"] suffer disproportionately from the effects of war. If we are to call ourselves civilized people, we have to see how ultimately we treat the most vulnerable segments of our population. And to the extent that we intentionally target the least vulnerable of us, we can never call ourselves civilized people. So we need to really see how we are behaving and what we are promoting, what we are tolerating, and to see the trends that we are moving towards in the rise of militarism and the rise of terrorism, all based on the creation of fear. And playing upon the fears of innocent people as a methodology of domination and control.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: The question is whether one really tolerates war, i.e. why does one tolerate war. Maybe there is simply no alternative. Because war is not only war of soldiers, war has become a war of the nations, and war of the nations does not only mean a war of weapons, but as well a war of the economy, of the sciences, everything is mobilized in the war, and as well the civilian population. Without the civilian population, without economy, without sciences, without background, infrastructure, without the support of the civilian population war cannot take place. And thus the civilian population is involved in the modern war. And for this reason the civilian population must prevent war. This is often the case in democracies, and, as we have already discussed, there is no war between democracies. Not only, because the civilian population is involved directly in the war, but as well because the population understands better how horrible war is, and not only adventure and fame, as it once was. So maybe the involvement of the civilian population might even be a chance to prevent war.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: Thank you, Angela. It should not be tolerated, but it is. It is tolerated and it’s under reported. We don’t know the casualties of the war, the civilian deaths. We hear of the soldiers that die, and their names, their stories. In America, they spend so much time doing profiles -- the whole history of this person. To the point, where you don’t want to hear anymore about them. It’s overplayed. And yet, that person deserves that recognition for their life, and maybe it’s because there’s too many human civilian casualties of this war to profile. You hear the names of the soldiers dying and you hear the number of civilians’ dead. In the last hundred years, we’ve seen this increased because of the type of warfare that is happening. It’s not warfare of bows and arrows, or even guns but of bombs, huge bombs, and technological warfare, and of biological warfare. We will never know the true number of civilian casualties of this war because the effects of depleted uranium and all of these other kind of side effects of war, and even psychological side effects of war are huge. Our toleration has become numb. We’ve come numb to life and death until it hits home. When civilians in our own country start to die, we wake up. We stand up and say that this should not be tolerated. We need to stand up for the civilians of the world and say that this should not be tolerated.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas: The reason why it's tolerated is because we're oblivious to it. We always think that war is something far away from our reality. We don't find a connection of what is happening in other places with our reality. So people tend to think, this doesn't have to do with me. I don't care. So that feeling, that way of thinking, is what really make things worse. Because at the end, a war create displacement of people, and people would come to your place, and bring over a new - and create new situation that maybe you consider as problems. So everything is connected. What happen over there, can also affect me. So I think we need to overcome that feeling that it's not with me. Because maybe the day of tomorrow, it will be with me. And for this to really change I think, one day, all of the people, we the majority, we should go to the battlefield, with no guns, to stop this war. And I would swear to you, that those soldiers, they would never have enough bullets to kill us all, and then we can stop those war. But we need to stand up, and come as one voice, in the war with a powerful message that says, end genocide, end violence, end war. We need peace and social justice in our cities, in our communities, in our neighborhood, in our families, to be able to build a healthy global community.

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Bianca Jagger: Answertext will be available soon.

by Bianca Jagger

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: First we should say that it’s a tragedy that that is the situation, that more and more civilians suffer in a war, and not just in war but in genocidal things that are essentially like a war. I think it’s because the death of civilians is part of the psychological warfare where fear of that as a weapon that is part of the psychological and political battle that’s always a part of war. The most tragic and immoral situation of all is probably the way in which the U.S. and the Soviet Union built thousands of nuclear missiles and used them to threaten each other’s populations, mutually assured destruction. It’s been said that we shouldn’t call the hydrogen bomb a bomb because it really has no purpose. Oppenheimer argued that we should never build it because it really can only be used to destroy civilian populations. It’s simply too large in its scale flattening an entire city is killing civilians, it’s not waging a war. It’s not really a bomb, it’s an abomination. So it’s unfortunately the case that these newer kinds of weapons, bioweapons, the weapon of terrorism using the mass media and these things are all aimed at civilians. It doesn’t seem like the situation is going to reverse any time soon. So fortunately, hopefully the threat of the worst of these which is the threat of global nuclear conflict has been diminished. But we still face a century where most of the people killed in conflict are going to be civilians.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: Angela, with her 32 years, had to learn that there are no ultimate criteria in the world by which one most regressive phenomenon, such as an increase of victims in a war and warfare would even be efficiently judged and stopped. We know how the missions of the United Nations are caricaturly exposed. Even when a particular conflict is stopped, then a mass of misusages appear which are then taken advantage of by the peace makers themselves. Mostly everything ends in declarations and slowly executable resolutions. How many dead did fall in the last months in the Middle East, and everything began with kidnapping of two soldiers. The world is inefficient in that to save themselves by themselves, and that is why the matter are going the way they are.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: I think it’s tolerated to the extent that we basically allow it to continue. I think a truly civil society always resists. War is the greatest tragedy of the human spirit. You can’t put it in any bleaker terms than that. And civilian deaths, well, we know that now – you know, if you go back in history, there were armies that fought each other and they were warriors who had kind of been trained to do that. And now, of course, it’s usually about crippling centers of populations and civilians, women and children; terrible suffering. I don’t know. It’s just a damn curse and modern weapons are a curse. It’s amazing. I think so many of the current political leadership in the Western world were not actually combatants in the last II World War and many of them have not had the real thirst and experience of what it means to be literally in a war zone when it’s happening, and I think this is one of the reasons they don’t really appreciate just the pain and tragedy, particularly among civilians when they’re being subjected to cluster bombs and to Sulphur and so on. It’s absolutely despicable and it’s got to end. It just must end.

by Brian J. Weller