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

Sep 9, 2006 12:35:00 PM cite

Catherine David: I think war has never been very economical with civil victims, even if in the past it was for a reason or another easier to distinguish the army, the fighters, the soldiers and the population which was often behind the frontline. The battles always were fought on open compound, only during revolutions or insurrections the fights took place in the cities. Modern war seems to me like a total war, a war which is in no way a surgical war, as everybody wants us to believe, and the only condition for us is that war do no takes place next to us. So I think a lot of people are not interested in the disaster of others as it is just the disaster of others. Modern war also shows up a certain autism of people, it is also the capability of the media to create 'in and outs', to create places where life goes on in a normal way, even if these places are only about 300 kilometers afar, you are totally out of the worst violence, the worst crimes. I think the war in Yugoslavia is a good example, and war in Lebanon which is only about 4 houres afar from Paris, etc. So I think everything is acceptable if we are not directly concerned, as in modern war an extreme violence can take place close to us but in a place which is at the same time completely isolated from the rest of the world, which makes that too many people, for reasons of stupidity or cynicism, still believe in so-called surgical warfare.

by Catherine David

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