Friday, February 16, 2007

War, what is it good for?

What did you think Haldeman was trying to say about war? Would you call this an antiwar book? Or is it pro-war with a comment on how veterans are treated or misunderstood?
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7 comments:

Ben said...

I think it is anti-war. It is harshly critical of military bureaucracy. The most telling element is the meaninglessness of the whole war that is revealed at the end.

9:41 PM, February 17, 2007
cl said...

I agree the book had an anti-war message. I assume it was supposed to parallel, among other things, how helpless Vietnamese were affected or slaughtered, how we provoked a pointless war in a territorial battle for world dominion, also how Americans were pretty much rooks offered up as sacrifice to meet the objective.

I don't remember from my history days how much Vietnam was a drain on taxpayers (I assume a lot) or whether we then were stuck in an economic system that depended on the war. I thought that was one of the more interesting ideas by the author -- that we had come to depend on warfare as a business.

I'm also curious about a parallel on how the focus on send troops "abroad" left security in jeopardy on the home front.

Was anyone curious that the Taureans didn't attack Earth?

11:54 AM, February 20, 2007
cl said...

Also George, as our book expert this month, what did you think about some of these ideas? What do you like about this book?

11:55 AM, February 20, 2007
Erin said...

Definitely anti-war. The pointlessness, the money machine, the manipulations of people, the grisly injuries and deaths -- not exactly rah, rah.

CL, I think there was a line in there about how they kept Earth and Heaven hidden from the Taurans somehow.

11:05 PM, February 21, 2007
kc said...

warfare as a business

Yeah, cl, I found that quite interesting as well.

Do you think it was understood that way at the time it was published?

2:20 PM, February 22, 2007
george said...

See, I don't know what Haldeman was trying to say, because it seemed that humans couldn't help their warlike nature, and it took intervention for the war to stop.

But of course it took the intervention of Man to save mankind ... so who is Man, symbolically?

11:49 PM, February 24, 2007
Ben said...

But I think he was very negative about the warlike nature. In other words, even if he was saying it is inevitable, he would still find it lamentable and evil.

9:50 AM, February 27, 2007

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