Is war holding the UK back from progress? And the negative impact war has on our society

dr0tcl (64)in #war • 6 years ago

Talking about war is always going to be a touchy subject because the mentioning of it brings back bad memories for people and the families of people involved, along with war causing huge devastation to the land and infrastructure it is fought on including the long lasting negative social and economical impact it can have.

In some situations war is an inevitable outcome that can be impossible to prevent however the wide spread war that is ongoing in many countries is not down to inevitable factors but is down to greed and corruption. By this I mean in some situations war will always break out which will usually be when the food and water supplies aren't able to feed and water everyone so people take up arms to in attempts to gain those things for themselves and struggling people around them. Wars that are started due to forms of corruption are wars that should not happen with the advancements we have in today's world, it is true that all around the world there is corruption within the highest ranks of government however we live in a world where this shouldn't and doesn't need to be the case.

Corruption comes from peoples personal greed and these greedy people should not be able to get into power anymore due to the knowledge we have of past corruption and devastation caused by greed, however for some reason people still allow this to go on. We live in a world were people are intelligent enough and technology is advanced enough that within governments it should be one in every hundred people that is corrupt and dishonest however it is usually the case that one in every hundred is honest and not corrupt.

All of this said sadly we don't live in a perfect world and corruption and greed are so deep seeded into most every government that it is something that will take time to change however hopefully that change will come sooner rather than later.

Should we be involved:

The UK government involves itself and the people of the country in wars and disputes we have know reason to be involved in, as much as I believe in helping others I also believe that interfering to the extent that we do will always cause more harm than good because it creates more sides, forces new values onto people and causes more commotion and anger than it does help. For example the UK among other countries like to think that we are above and better than other places and that we have the answer to everything which blatantly isn't the case, from getting involved in wars throughout the world it has caused greater divide, poverty, fighting and environmental issues within many of the countries we invaded and the ongoing presence of our troops only keeps the tension at its peak.

The government likes to portray the idea that we go in to countries to save lives and snub out evil people but what we are doing can only be called invading as we go in and kill anyone we disagree with us, almost as if we are trying to become the new dictators of these countries killing uncountable numbers innocent people on our modern crusade for so called justice. There are just many hidden agendas and corruptions involved with modern conflict.

As you can probably tell by now I am anti-war and think that getting involved in foreign conflict will often cause more harm than good and I also believe that just because you have an opinion doesn't mean that it's correct and it seems that we had and have opinions on how to solve foreign conflicts that has been shown to be wrong yet we still carry on.

Although I could go on and go into more detail I feel there is a lot of great documentaries, interviews and many other forms of media that show the impact the UK has had on countries we invade that show many opinions and views on these complex situations and that document the corruption that has lead to what is happening today. What I want to talk about is the impact that these wars have on society within the UK.

Divide caused by war

When a country decides to go to war or get involved with a war there will always be the side that is pro-war and the side that is anti-war, although not quite as simple as this there will always be many sides. Each side has their own reasons and beliefs and this causes conflict and because it is a matter of life and death people struggle to stay calm and be civil, so during times of war there will always be tension in the country between people that support the war and people that don't. Further than this people often feel that if you talk badly about a war you are talking badly about soldiers that fight which makes things personal and furthers the divide between the sides even if that isn't the case.

The soldiers and families of soldiers also suffer greatly from war as many troops come home with severe mental trauma and they don't get the support they need which can have a detrimental impact on their life and people that around them, many veterans find it hard to hold a job or be part of a community and many veterans end up being homeless because they aren't helped once they come home. It is also massively stressful for the families of soldiers who either died in a foreign land or don't get the needed help when they come home and their families likely won't understand how to look after and help them because the trauma is so severe and the methods to help aren't fully understood yet, causing huge emotional stress on the veterans and the people around them.

Wars also causes a huge divide between the people of the countries that are at war even thought often times it really isn't anyone but the governments wars, when refugees come to the UK to seek a safer life they can be afraid of people and the people in the UK are often afraid that the people coming over may be extremists of some sort. Although these assumptions are almost always false it doesn't stop a divide and when people are afraid they try and move away form what scares them or move what scares them away which causes racism within the UK to grow, then as people become racist they look to separate form the group they are racist towards which causes a further divide which quickly runs into segregation and we are now seeing this in many areas across the country. Then when people grow up in segregated ares it makes them feel there is a reason to dislike the people they are segregated from and as they grow up they share their views with others and try to spread their views which can lead to more institutionalized racism in certain areas. All of these things have a devastating knock on impact which adds to the daily stress of life making people more unhappy and less content with how they are living.

War resulting in extremism

In recent times the UK has been under constant threat of terrorist attacks that are as a result of two main things we have done, firstly is the fact that in the past we funded groups of terrorist both knowingly and unknowingly meaning they had the funds to buy weapons and indoctrinate people into joining their organizations through various methods. Secondly due to the harm modern weapons cause many innocent people end up getting caught in the crossfire and the survives can easily hold hatred toward the people that caused them harm and then want to take revenge or because they are so hurt they are more easily manipulated by terrorist organizations.

Terrorist are now regularly trying to cause harm to the UK in any way they can often by bombing populated places or events which causes huge devastation, destroying infrastructure and taking lives along with harming many people. After these attacks people try to band together to help but the impact on people lives, deaths and trauma will always be there and will always be remembered as peoples lives just won't be the same afterwards. These attacks also make people live with more fear than they usually would have to, even when trying to look at the side of people coming together after these attacks there will also be people that become hateful and resentful leading to more racism within the country and more damaged people.

Money and Media

The cost of war globally at this point really is uncapped, the spending over the last 50 years is almost unfathomable when you include, rebuilding, deference costs, weaponry, vehicles, transport, paying troops and any other cost that goes with war. The amount of money spent by the UK alone is almost unfathomable and if we weren't involved in these foreign conflicts a lot more money could be spent on improving infrastructure for struggling people within the country and to just generally improve sectors that need work.

Within any war there is always individuals that will profit, some likely in high up positions in governments which just further shows corruption and other issues within a country. A few individuals make vast profit at the suffering of an uncapped number of people and at the costs of governments.

The media also like to always cover negative stories of terrorism, war famine, death, whatever negative things are going on the media will be talking about it somewhere which just pushes negativity onto the people of the country as it is very difficult to entirely avoid the news and whenever you see it there will be some negative thing to put a downer on peoples days and give them negative things to think about.

When all of these different areas come together, divide, war, extremism, money and media it is a huge burden that people have to carry in their day to day lives and it causes more stress than people need and more than people can handle. In the UK around half of the population is considered either unhappy or not content with their lives, which for such a wealthy advanced country is mind blowing. You would assume that because of the wealth and access to education, food, clean water and all the other amazing things the UK has to offer that the people within would be a lot more happy but they just aren't. I honestly think one of the largest contributes to people being unhappy and not being content is the wars that we fight because they have a vast knock on impact on society and the things we see and hear are so regularly negative as a result of the harm we caused in other countries.