Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: I think a long time ago people used swords and also they met in the battlefields, but today we developed new bombs we developed what we call a smart way, better war machines. But one bomb don't choose who to kill; whether it's a soldier; and it's also difficult, because there are enemies in civilian clothes and you never know in the end you’re killing innocent people. To much weapons every where and everyone now can shoot them. Everyone knows how to use them. And I think it shouldn't be tolerated; because why should a child who have never created a bullet be killed by it? Why should a mother who has nothing to do with such machines, lose their children, lose their husbands and suffer in silence without us even ever knowing? And I have never even had any compensation from these weapon makers and I think it will be nice if a law could be started that every time a bullet kills an innocent person, the factory of that bullet should pay compensation to the victim. Maybe that way we could have 50/50; you kill, and you compensate; or you stop making more of those bullets.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: There are legal regulations to protect civilians during war, which are penetrated again and again. One may not forget that the conflicts between national states decreased in the last 30 40 years, however the ethnical religious conflicts, which increased civil war like and acts of terror. And that, naturally, brings with itself that the civil society took up ever more, but if you consider that in the last struggles with Lebanon the Israeli side used also cluster bombs against civilians, whereby naturally the Hisbollah was substantially military weaker than the Israeli side and therefore the civilians, used as a shield. And the Israeli side, how the weapons were supplied from Americans probably, only with the restriction to take consultation the American government before using the bombs, but it was penetrated and cluster bombs were used against civilians. There are always abuses. War is actually an absurdity. As I said, war leads never to victory, war leads never to peace, war leads only to victory and victory leads not to peace. (???) Whether the civilian population is pulled in or not, is connected with the fact that the national struggles could be regulated, still somehow legally, by ever more the ambush come more over the ethnical-religious civil wars, also in the Yugoslavia war for example, in the Kosovo, where ever more civilians were pulled in. It is digusting, but it is unfortunately a historical fact in the course of the mechanization of the wars.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Cornel West: The first is important just to call a spade a spade that the increase in civilian death is an increase in barbarism. It’s an increase in bestiality. The very notion of dropping bombs on innocent civilians is a barbaric act. It’s tolerated because those who do such things can get away with it. It’s tolerated because people more and more view it as the norm and feel as if they can do very little about it. People feel as if they are impotent, helpless of somehow countering such barbaric activity; and it will stop only when everyday people feel as if they have the power to stop it and we will feel they have the power to stop it only when they seek such power, only when they enact such power through organization that the resistance to [form] the barbarism such as the increase in civilian death will only stop when highly civilized courageous and visionary people come together and say no, a great refusal in an institutional form to such barbarity.

by Cornel West

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: If you are going to see the trend in terms of casualties, the casualties increase in terms of war when nuclear bombs, when computer operationalized or detonated bombs are invented which means casualties increase as the technology advance. And people are just – people just keep on inventing dangerous weapons and people do not learn their lessons during, let’s say, the bombing of the Nagasaki that kills a lot of civilians. I agree that 100 years back the war before has minimal casualties because they used bows, they used single guns; but now we are talking about bombs, nuclear bombs, atomic bombs. And, the sad thing is our global leaders are allowing it to happen. So we are praying for our global leaders to at least contribute in minimizing using hi-tech nuclear bombs in order to minimize casualties, and the better if we should stop fighting in war in our backyard. It’s the best thing that we could contribute to the humanity and [neighbors].

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Dritëro Kasapi:

by Dritëro Kasapi

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Eliane Potiguara: The best form to invest this financial resources would be educational programs, educational programs for the people, for ethnicities, for different countries. Programs of qualification, classes and projects where to learn how to make money to pay the rents There should be more investment into small communitary groups or into cities for that people could have a better access to occupation, one form of occupation to earn the money for the rents. An auto-sustainable project would be the best to turn this money into millions which could be re-invested again into similar projects and so to help other peoples who also don't have any access. I say the right track would be to invest into education and health. But regrettably money is being invested in a very bad way.

by Eliane Potiguara

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Eliot Weinberger: First of all, that’s not exactly true in that traditionally war has led to a great number of civilian deaths, and traditionally the armies would come in and kill all the people in a town or a village. What is different is that, with the rise of modern warfare in the 18th century, you then had wars being fought by professional military and militaries against each other. After World War I, we had a return to a large number of civilian deaths and the problem was the advanced weaponry was causing civilian deaths on a massive scale, previously unimagined, particularly of course Hiroshima and the bombings of Dresden. So, one could say that the lack of civilian deaths in a way was an anomaly in the history of warfare. Why is this tolerated? Because the civilians aren’t given human faces and I think that the more we learn about who the people are who are getting killed in these wars, then the more repulsive it becomes.

by Eliot Weinberger

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Elisabet Sahtouris: The dramatic increase in civilian death in war over the past century has obviously been because of the dramatic increase in mass destruction weapons. When combat was hand-to-hand it wasn’t possible to kill as many people as when you can drop a major bomb on them or strike them with a missile. Why is it tolerated? Actually I don’t think the people of the world are tolerating war any more. I think people have become very intolerant of war. Before the American invasion of Iraq we saw people by the millions demonstrating around the world saying no. And to me as a species watcher, an evolution biologist, it was like saying no, let’s stop acting in this juvenile way, let’s grow up and become global family. Why do we teach our children not to hit each other with sticks and stones, not to call each other names, not to fight? Why do we think our children don’t see the hypocrisy of being told not to fight when every time the television is turned on they see grown ups taking things away from each other and fighting? I think the human species is ready to grow up, to solve its conflicts in other ways. And yet it isn’t happening yet. The people of the world are ahead of their governments. I don’t know why so many governments when, as they’re represented in the United Nations, seem to be cowed, seem to be afraid to speak the voice of their own people. But I find it tragic because it’s clear to me that the people don’t want wars when governments are still either tolerating them or actively supporting them. And this has to change because we’ve got to grow up as a species. We’ve got to have generations in which the young people, now that they can communicate with each other all around the world by internet, say to each other, no differences among us are worth killing each other for. Let’s stop this nonsense, let’s not do this violence anymore. In this 60s we said make love, not war. Please, revive that motto. Let’s care and share with each other and stop making war on each other because we should not be tolerating the massive loss of life.

by Elisabet Sahtouris

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Ervin Laszlo: Civilian deaths due to war is tolerated because war is tolerated, they two go together. War today uses more and more lethal weapons including the so-called weapons of mass destructions. These cannot be focused so specifically that they only kill military personnel, they kill civilians as well, they destroy entire habitats, entire cities. So, as long as we tolerate war, we have to buy in this deal also, civilian deaths. But of course we should not tolerate war and that’s the way to avoid having also civilian deaths caused by war.

by Ervin Laszlo

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Esther Mwaura-Muiru: It’s – it’s been tolerated because it’s the mass, people have become so powerless. People have become so helpless. They have pushed into corners that they feel they can no longer exist, and they’ve watched in pain. This is because those who have power have amassed enough to oppress and oppress enough. And I wouldn’t say that it’s been tolerated by everyone. It’s actually tolerated by politicians, by the people in power. But if you went to almost all those communities of the – those that have suffered in pain during wars, people who have human value. They have not tolerated it. They may not be shouting. They may not be walking across the streets to protest. But they do not tolerate. Many people hugely, I have talked to many people from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from the U.S., from [Malintan], and the common person you talk to, they are so devastated by the issue of war. But the thing is, we are too many of us who disagree in totally to the war, but we do not have as much power as the very many of the people in political positions. They may be too few, but they have enough power to suppress the many of us who do not agree and do not tolerate the war.

by Esther Mwaura-Muiru

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Fernando Solanas: Well. This is one of the biggest expressions of humiliation of humanity and of the occidental conscience of this epoch. I think that it has to do a lot with the actions of the mass media that are being used as a military intelligence of the attacking powers by calming those expressions and answering to those saving actions. The bombing with thousands of arms during weeks or months, like it did the United States against Bagdad or Afghanistan. But not only the United States, also England did this with the satisfaction of Europe. And this is scandalous. The same has just happened during one month with more than 200 bombings each day from Israel against defenceless populations of the Libanon. Humanity should create mecanisms of response that go beyond those agreements and compromises of those governments that are accomplices of those inhuman and cruel attacks. – It is dangerous that a big part of the occidental world is accepting this inequality, this marginalization, the victims of war and war itself. This is terrible. I think that there is being produced a [], of schizophrenia of the conscience of the occidental world that does not want to see the cruelties.

by Fernando Solanas

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Fred Matser: First of all, I think that in the areas where there are so many victims, and people, especially civilians or anybody dying that is not tolerated at all. Nobody that has been in the war zone will tolerate any form of violence and death that goes with it. It perhaps is in the Western world where we are so often protected and sitting behind our safe walls that we may have developed a kind of numbness because we have such a comfortable life that we forget that we are connected, that we are -- if somebody is killed in another country that is part of ourself that is dying. And we have perhaps to introspect and see why we allow ourselves to numb off, and see if we can be involved. If we can allow our feelings, our emotions expressed and take action, I mean, then -- I mean, if we go really deep into ourselves, including me. Of course, I often sit on the side as well and I see it happen and I don't take action. I may take the next sip of coffee or tea. But, it is important to indeed allow our awareness to connect with those dramatic events that happen in our life and really reach out. And it's important if we all live in, and many of us live in those comfortable positions that we remind ourselves that our people that are living in really painful and very difficult situations. We have to join them and see if we can help them and prevent it from happening in the future as least as possible.

by Fred Matser

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Galsan Tschinag: This passiveness is due to the fact that most people still live in mental blindness. They are unindependent in their thinking and they are unable to act. And the policy of most governments is to leave the masses in this miserable state and they even want to make them dumber to act in every positive or negative way they want. For this reason people need democracy which keeps them awake and which doesn't make them fall asleep.

by Galsan Tschinag

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Geert Lovink: The answer to your question can be found in a lot of books on military history. But, in fact, also books that deal with urban planning and cities, architects. I find it quite striking that it's the -- with the architects who have been, in my opinion, the most profound thinkers of this issue because many have before you asked this question, and of course, I am mainly referring here to the French theorist and urban planner, Paul Virilio, who is outraged in the same way as you are about this move that is still continuing in which entire populations are being held hostage, in fact, through war and that the aim of war is increasingly one of keeping hostage entire civil populations. So, we don't even have to think so much about the deaths amongst civil population. It goes way beyond just the increased number of deaths. And to answer that question, I think it's important to look back to the history, the change of the role of soldiers, armies, the general armies, in which subscription became obligatory, now there is move back, and the incredible increase in destructive power of the weaponry that is used in which the aim of the war is no longer the siege of an old town. And that's basically the old concept of war towards a war that is able to [audio ends].

by Geert Lovink

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Giora Feidman: I know their grief; they just tolerate. Yeah, can be that you are right. Became enormous thing of society. But, who want himself to be killed by the war or by terroris or an act of war? Nobody. We must be careful that if I live in a country that doesn't exist war, relative, and I don't see they exist, we should be awake. We should practice at conscious level where we know that in another place there is a war. And, even something that we are not educated to, to projecting, to project an energy, when you do it together; we are not educated to practice this. And, we didn't gather information, the mental energy as a community. If a tremendous, a tremendous power for this, we must practice the energy that we call unity. This even is not to enforce. You see in your home, it’s fathers and children and brothers, that the conception of family is unity, and this conception of family as a unity, you go outside your home, and you will feel that the family is big, is all the planet; and after that you will see that you are united, everyone of us.

by Giora Feidman

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Gladman Chibememe: It’s tolerated because the people who perpetrate the war want only to look at war from their own personal and egoistic perspective. They want to benefit. They didn’t care who suffers. In my country, in my community, we normally say: [foreign language], which means that where two bulls fight normally the grass is the one that suffers. But we don’t care about the grass. We care about whether my bull has been defeated or whether it is being hurt or not, but whether the grass is being destroyed or whatever, that’s not an issue. Because we are too egoistic, we are too selfish. We are interested in our asset, the bull. So, the same applies to those who create or who support wars. They support them and wage wars to inflict the pain to civilians. And they don’t care about it, because the civilians are not their interests. So, I think the most important thing is that those in leadership should realize that when they lead, they don’t only lead their personal and egoistic interests, they themselves they lead the people, the civilians. Because if you kill and destroy the civilians whom you are supposed to rule? Then what’s the purpose of the war? Because the war is a fight for power, power to rule. But, you are justifying the killing of the civilians. So, that’s crazy for me. So, I think it is important that when a war is fought, it should have to target the real people in war, the soldiers or whoever is in war, not any civilian, not children, not women, not older people, not the indigenous people in the community.

by Gladman Chibememe

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi: Why do we tolerate? We shouldn’t. But, how do we make a difference? Will this? We must find a way to question this. It should not be leading to civilian deaths. But, why is it happening? Because, as political systems that we have created for the purposes of our own self determination and development, the issues of poverty, the issues of equal opportunities are increasingly becoming more difficult for our politicians to solve. So, it is a manner that the powerful who manage the political system want to divert the attention of their communities and justify such irrational actions. We must expose this. You must do it in Sri Lanka, I must do it in India as collective voice, as we are doing in this Table of Free Voices. All of us together, I am very sure would not be justifying this nonsense. So, let us see how do we create a forum for free expression to question this nonsense in our respective communities. It cannot be stopped unless we question.

by Govindaswamy Hariramamurthi

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Hans-Peter Dürr: It is obvious, that this is connected to the fact that the weapons, which are available today, are weapons of mass destruction. These weapons are no longer used locally to hurt or kill one individual enemy but they are used on a very large scale without taking into consideration who is hit. This is the reason why innocent people, who are not involved, are hit and why hatred in the world is on the increase. More and more people in the world can ask why they are punished for something in which they are not involved. And the people who are really responsible, the people who are in favour of this development are located somewhere where they are not vulnerable. This is the reason why war solves no problems, why it is a massacre. This unspecific aspect is really an offence against all rights of life and of human beings. We cannot let this happen. I cannot understand why people who took up the cause of freedom, democracy and human rights are the same who say 'nuke them all' if something goes wrong. By this they mean using nuclear weapons against a people who cause so much trouble and extinguishing them, so to speak. Not punishing an individual who did something bad but everyone in the surrounding. People, who only think of living a normal life with their children, their friends and their family. They want to live a peaceful life, they want to enjoy it, because they worked hard for it all the time. We destroy them as well. You have to see that and it only becomes comprehensible when you see that people who make these decisions have lost their feeling for what humanity means. Humanity is more than just altruism. It means to feel yourself how others suffer under this destruction.

by Hans-Peter Dürr