with regards to winning back a country, the thing is, i think that the human race went through an evolution. It’s only in the last 200 years that we’ve started seeing the borders being permanently established, and territorial wars are now only localized. i mean, france, one can forsee, will pretty much always be france (give or take an alsacian border or 2), i’m not seeing the romans coming over and saying “you know, 600 years ago, we lived here”. At least not now. Maybe it’s a cycle, and maybe eventually, we’ll start re-drawing the map… but for now, territorial wars are only very localized. when hilter walked into paris, he was walking into france. people in paris speak french, eat french food, have a strong french national identity that had been built up over generations. They don’t speak german, so paris is french, it’s not german. so i believe that french people would have a right to defend their city and take it back from an invasion.

i realize it’s not remotely as cut and dry in other regions, because regions that have been fought over for generations have a complete mix of cultures, and it’s hard to say who’s right and who’s wrong, but since we’re on the topic of hitler, yes, i believe that it was a question of the french gettting their country back (i didn’t say “winning”, they’re nothing joyful here).

hitler, the norm, yes, absolutely, had he been successful, we would have seen him as the brilliant orator he was, and the smart war tactician that he was early in his life (he kinda lost it eventually, and his neurosis was his downfall), and a few generations later, people would have idolized him. yes, i can imagine that as an alternative course of events… scary… but interesting…

If we had adopted that mentality as our own , would we not now all hail him as a prophet or savior of sorts?

Crazy I know … still.

I think that the truth lies not in war but in education. Brain washing is in existance on any side of the war. So who is right? Is Capitalism and all it’s ugliness the way to go? or the other side with it’s oppressive ways towards woman … is it even a true choice? are people getting to choose – or are you born into that choice?

Win back your country? how did you come by it in the first place? Why do we humans feel the need to “own” the land in the first place?? Who are we to lay claim at any time in our history. Look at France? who has rights? the Brits who invaded for a time? the Spanish?

Violence never solved anything “cleanly” – but it does resolve things for time, anythign gained in war can and will be challenged in the future… it always comes to bite you in the ass eventually.

War is simply a “to date” reflection of the state of humanity. We are self distructive on many levels yet we are a balance – we are able of such trememdous beauty and constructive, positive impact. And we can undo it in the blink of an eye. We are as a species, both a plague and cure.