Reading Ren's discussion of benchmark objectives in Iraq, and the myriad concerns raised (by other Thom's posters) about leaving the Iraqi government to the Iraqi's, and wondering at the lack of satisfaction in "Mission Accomplished" stated by the myriad concern raisers, I thought of War Therapy.

The price of peace and autonomy is really high, when you think about it. Much like the therapist who fails to make his client independent of the "help" of the helping professions, War is not designed to achieve Peace. War has its own perpetual logic and impetus. I think the cycle is, in part, based on "other" reasons for waging war that are not overtly recognized, but it also is based on a "need" for war.

If you think about it, therapists who make clients well, lose their income stream. Likewise, war makers who press for peace lose their basic mission, which is not to reach "Mission Accomplished" but to press onward to the next battlefield.

What explains those pockets of peace that History has revealed are sometimes possible ... is, perhaps, exhaustion or perhaps the obligatory pit stop to tune up the engines of war. I dunno.

quote:

The price of peace and autonomy is really high, when you think about it. Much like the therapist who fails to make his client independent of the "help" of the helping professions, War is not designed to achieve Peace. War has its own perpetual logic and impetus. I think the cycle is, in part, based on "other" reasons for waging war that are not overtly recognized, but it also is based on a "need" for war.

Interesting proposition, Kate, sanity is expensive. The "if so" of that, raised a question in my mind of precisely what is that high price composed?

• Not the cost of maintaining life in a world where the forces of "defense" are eliminated and those expenditures turned to other life supporting ventures;
  
  
• not the cost of ceasing the degradation of environments that can occur in warfare, whereupon those environments can then regain their health naturally, and become more life generating without an expenditure of any kind by us;
  
  
• not the ending of the damage human beings and those lifelong costs that spread like cancerous networks of destruction through relationships that make up societies in ways that cannot be accurately traced and measured, because so much of it is psychological and beyond our crude measurements in that area, and so those costs of war tend to be overlooked, although they can be very high costs.

No, not those "expenses," for those are not "high" expenses if reversed. Indeed, they are high if not reversed. Rather than expenses, then, they become entries on the asset side of the ledger if reversed. So that wouldn't be what you must mean by a high price to pay for ending war.

So, other than the probability that the makers of the industial parts for war will pay a high price as they lose their tax generated incomes, and that all those connected to that will also pay a kind of price, in the macro view, that's not the "high" price society pays, not precisely, because all of that can be just a periodic downturn for a segment of society in a process where plowshares, so to speak, can become as profitable as machinery of war.

So I'm guessing it must be this "need" for war that's the price you refer to. Some sort of expense related to the loss of it. I am reminded of Chris Hedges' book: War is a Force that gives us Meaning. Loss of meaning is expensive, perhaps.

Is that quantifiable do you suppose? Or is it a psychological price of some kind? A psychology of a society that your analogy to therapy suggests is in need of getting well, but if mentally healed puts someone in the healing industry out of business. Who's the healer who goes out of business. For whom is the price of peace high?