Politics

[123everton]

How many people have been killed because of politics?
How many wars have been caused because of politics?

[Whickerman]

No Idea

And all of them - even religious wars have a political bent

[ll_billym]

Big question. One of the most famous books to discuss this is 'On War' by Carl von Clausewitz.

This link summarises some of his ideas on war and politics:

http://people.cohums...._war.htm#Continuation

[123everton]

Politics is the cause of all wars, perhaps the world would be a better place without politicians?
Political parties will often fight one another whilst not being in power, The International Brigade fought each other and Franco, Kuo Min Tang spent more time fighting the P.L.A than the Japs.

[Teleph0ne]

I think religeon is responsible for far more than politics!

[123everton]

I disagree there.

[Teleph0ne]

Thats what it comes down to at the end of the day

[Teleph0ne]

The core of the problem is religeon even if it appears to be political most of the time especially in Israel etc

[123everton]

A politician will do one thing and blame everyone else for his need to do it, politicians are very happy to let religion carry the can for their political ends.
Some good answers so far.

[rojash]

"The core of the problem is religion". It's not y'know: it's people.

Politics is about people. Religion is created by people. People like to hate and kill other people. Religion is a handy excuse; differing political beliefs are another handy excuse.

There are many reasons that politicians like wars; for example, the Argentinian Junta thought that taking over the Falklands would increase their popularity and power base at home. Maggie was happy to pull warships out of the region to encourage them to go for it, becuase she knew that winning a little war would increase her own power base.

Tony Blair thought he could get the same kudos from invading Iraq, but he failed on the part where he needed to make it look like Iraq was the aggressor.

But none of them could have had their wars without the avid "patriots" who egged them on.

As I said. People like wars, and people cause wars.

[jno]

regretfully, I agree with rojash. Whether politicians lead us or we lead them can be hard to say; but in the case of wars we're pretty much in it together. There was a lot of public oppositiion to the war in Iraq - didn't a million people demonstrate against it? - but when push came to shove, Blair won the next election; so clearly enough people either approved of the war or didn't care.

With religion, it's not so democratic - we don't elect religious leaders - but then again, we don't have to follow them either. Muslims who don't agree with an imam's call to jihad can choose to ignore it; millions must do so every day.

[123everton]

2 excellent posts.

[jno]

infundibulum, some of the media are compliant, some aren't. To some extent they believe what their favourite politicians tell them; some don't. But the Falklands war, for instance, was pretty straightforward: nothing much has come up to show that anyone was misled by the media or politicians, the facts were pretty much what they seemed to be. Most people were all in favour of the war, before, during and after. Most were happy to go charging into Iraq; they had the chance to chuck Blair out at the next election if they wanted, but they voted him back in despite the lack of progress in the war. I think the British are pretty bellicose, and their elected politicians reflect that.