Children and women are not often considered when it comes to aggressive war. Here's my research.
localhost/Users/helenesmith/Documents/
TRAPPED
–Women and Children Caught in Man's Crossfire
Helene Smith ©
copyright 2013
www.macdonaldsward.com
Sophocles,
Greek playwright of tragedies, wrote, “War loves to seek its victims in the
young.” Greek historian Herodotus born in 484 BCE said, "In peace children
inter their parents, but in war parents inter their children."
"I
once was a little child who longed for other worlds. But I am no more a child for I have known fear. I have learned
to hate . . . How tragic, then, is youth which lives with enemies, with gallows
ropes. Yet, I still believe I only sleep today. That I'll wake up a child again, and start to laugh and
play."
–Hama
Herchanberg, 14 year old, died in 1948, Auschwitz Concentration Camp
Now, instead of defense for women, all
the corporate government strength is spent on devastation instead of diplomacy
that completely makes women and children vulnerable as war zones are now fought
on urban streets filled with non-combatants. As man's security went out the
window with the lust for war taking its place, their machismo bullying power
flew in with great gusto. Yet as Virgil, born in 70 BCE, wrote with great
wisdom, "There is no safety
in war." After centuries of
committing genocide, holocausts and blood-thirsty atrocities that include
raping war-torn women man still does not get it. Despite male munitions deforming and retarding man's own
offspring and causing breast cancer and you name it against his spouses and
children, the excitement of war lures him on like a juicy steak dangled in
front of a dog.
History
has also told us that women have pursued wars, too, as Amazons of mythology
describing aggressive women fighting men.
A friar under Francisco de Orellana in 1546, explorer of the Amazon
River, told stories of
"she-shames" who also fought naked–each with the
"strength of ten men." The mental imagery is breathtaking!
Legendary Amazon
mothers influenced by warrior partners around the Black Sea cauterized one
breast of baby daughters for later development skills in shooting arrows. This
site was where unrelated scalping originated. (source: Duquesne University (PA) Forum paper,
"Scalping, A Hair-Raising Experience") Myths of Amazons from the Greco-Roman culture were described
as fearless, fierce women–inspiration for naming the world's largest river in
South America.
Joan
(Jeanne) of Arc–described in a poem by Voltaire–was burned alive at the stake
in a deal between England and France to end the Hundred Years War. At that time woman wearing male
clothing or carrying a sword was a punishable offense. But the underlying
charge of heresy that brought the demise of "Maid of Orleans" stemmed from the two kings
losing their prestige to a woman who had led the French to victorious battles
in 1429. The Pope was especially
peeved. The martyr heard voices from a deity and that made her more powerful.
Heaven forbid, he must have said, "God had talked to her instead of me!" In Japan medieval warrior, Lady Yatsushior, astride a
stallion charged into battle, pregnant!
In
1755 the United States learned the hard way bout deadly war tactics. When the British army wearing bright
red coats marched in the open were mowed down by First Americans during the
Battle of the Monongahela at Pittsburgh's three rivers named for indigenous
people, the "Indians" had the advantage. It had to do with surprise attack from behind the camouflage
of trees, smart strategy later studied by West Point.
This
important fact leads to how wars today provide no security or camouflage for
defense no matter how much firepower is available. The forceful war department
(euphemized as defense), could not provide security when Saudi Arabians took
over American airplanes to use them as bombs during the September 11th tragic
atrocity of 2001. The US military
with all its nuclear and supersonic military power enough to blow up Earth
itself was helpless. Why? –
because no nation can defend itself against surprise attack. All the super powered technology in the
world cannot prevent this kind of violence–individual's suicide bombers in
revenge of political corruption, hiding
undercover among crowds and hidden in hordes of people, the newest modus
operandi of warfare reminiscent of Japanese Kamikaze pilots. Mega weapons for this reason are now
obsolete and obscene since they murder civilians as youths are programmed to
kill, as well as use cowardly, illegal infant-killing munitions. Mothers know that peace always trumps
wars. The word abolition also
pertains to the banning of toxic munitions.
This
is reason enough for giving up futile fixation of wars and concentrating on
alternative energy instead of genocidal. Focusing on creative global peace
departments energizes life instead of propping up industrial corporate death
via lethal munitions. Maybe President Lincoln was right. He advised making friends instead of
enemies. Stop pegging people as
enemies and treat fellow people as fellow humans by serious discourse and
intense diplomacy.
Meanwhile Homo
sapient males again forgot the protective nature of animals and instead offered
up their children as burnt offerings to war deities out of fear and
superstition–"in God's name"–what happened in the biblical story of
Abraham ready to sacrifice his son Isaac to the gods. No deity worth his salt would kill his own creations. What archaic mentality! Superstition, man's first religion,
lasts centuries up to the present. Burnt-offering rituals were common among
primitive men–as grieving women helplessly turned away in hot tears of anguish.
Buried in the hearts of these patriarchs was the same passion, but stifled by
imagined forces demanding to be fed burnt human flesh of children–banquets for
officiating cannibalistic priests when ritual smoke cleared.
Eventually human sacrifice transformed to
battlefield alters also involving youths, with "the fairer sex "
evolving faster than males more interested in education and health of other
children than in killing other
peoples offspring. Man, short for human, after centuries of aggression
is finally realizing diplomacy, communication, rhetoric, negotiation, and
equality among all peoples through enforcement of humane laws bring peace and
order. In war no one wins.
In
a gun shell this is the history of women conditioned to war–lock, stock, and
barrel–how they fought in it and now against it. And after centuries of grief and sorrow women especially
along with veterans of wars, and gays more interested in the arts conclude it is inevitable to bring
savage slaughter to an end. Female
intuition recognizes warrior mentality in a war economy world will never go
away on its own.
Lysistrada, an ancient Greek drama by Aristophanes, is a story
about how women united to prohibit aggression without any weapon other than
clever reasoning power–and their bodies bargained for peace terms.
This
was during the Peloponnesian Wars of 400-404 BCE that were about to end for
lack of funds wasted by the folly of aggression. Grecian mothers concerned that wars were destroying and
wasting the lives of their children, took an oath around a bowl of wine to
reject the pleasures of sex from their husbands and lovers until they stopped
fighting.
Women
have fought in all wars. But for the most part the female gender had to
disguise herself and her motive in order to be with her spouse since worry of
others is almost as severe as death. Ironically national war re-enactment
authoritative males have prohibited female participation as soldiers until
recent years, mimicking what the army has done for years.
On
the home front women are still active behind battle lines. During the American
Revolutionary War Betsy Ross had her hand in designing the US flag, as she
carried out patriotic duty. Both Martha Washington and Katy Greene, General
Nathanial Greene's wife, in tattered, drab war-torn dresses rolled bandages and
knitted wool socks for soldiers during the six-month winter encampment at
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Wives were permitted to visit their husbands of
high rank during the Revolution.
Dolly
Madison, at the time of the War of 1812, rescued (with male help) the famous portrait of George Washington in
the White House, what slaves built before it was burned. During the same war
Rhoda Wadsworth Clark from St. Marys, Georgia (second oldest US city) revealed
her patriotism. Her husband, Colonel Archibald Clark–port customs officer–had
just been dragged away and imprisoned temporarily on a British flagship that
had landed.
However,
before the Captain Cockburn and
his sailors ram shacked and torched much of the town that was later burned
again during the Civil War (1861-65), Rhoda bravely stood up to the commander
and confronted him in the entranceway of her home, famous for its visitor Aaron
Burr who hot-footed there after killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The Brit noticed a royal emblem was
woven into the rug where the two of them were talking. A historical conversation
followed. "Ah, I see you
honor the golden symbol on the English Royal Coat of Arms, madam." But the woman quickly replied in no
uncertain terms, "Not really, sir.
You see, I am standing on it with my feet!"
From 1807 until 1838 Parliament debated over
slavery in England and ended the violation of human rights without shooting one
bullet or killing any person or horse, proving enforcement of law and order is
superior to man-mangling man. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower said,
"Peace is acceptance of law, and for fostering justice, on all the
world."
In
the 1700s Aaron Burr tried to abolish slavery through Congress, but slave-owner
members quashed his efforts. Although he had inherited slaves, he taught them
to read and write and then freed them.
If only an equal count of females and males had been in Congress at that
time, the Civil War would never have happened. Nevertheless, women succumbing
to the wiles of the world have bravely supported their partners while wielding
weapons and facing the gore. More than 400 women fought in America's uncivil
war disguised as men, together with women spies.
So–illicit
slavery continued. "Damn the
torpedoes!" shouted US Admiral Daniel Farragut ignoring mines rigged in
the waterway–shades of Civil War on the Alabama River in Mobile Bay in
1865. Harriet Tubman, two years
before, under brigade command of the Union government, led a raid by
African-American Second South Carolina Regiment on the Combahee River–shutting
off southern supplies and freeing hundreds of people from bondage.
But
her courageous action never made it into early history books written by
so-called "whites." An
artist depicted this hero aboard a gunboat in a painting at Hilton Head's
"Red Piano" gallery in South Carolina. The abolitionist served as a
commander, scout, spy, and nurse. John Brown called her General Tubman (America's
Most Unsung Civil War General).
During
the two-day battle of Gettysburg a soldier struggled up a hill under heavy
gunfire. He was shot, but his partner picked up his flag and carried on for her
husband. During this unnecessary
war nearly seven hundred thousand soldiers and a million horses died, along
with thousands of aftermath deaths from war hazards and suicide.
Underpaid
women and girls (before labor laws, many twelve year olds) worked in munitions
factories while their husbands and sweethearts were at war. Boys were not often employed since they
could not be trusted with black powder. (Why men shouldn't commit wars.) In Lawrenceville near Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania the Civil War Arsenal blew up with employees jumping out of
windows from a two-story warehouse.
Over
70 women and children burned or suffocated within the sulfur-smelling
smoke. Scraps of drab dresses hung
from macabre branches of trees above body parts strewed grotesquely on the
grounds. One little girl was
identified by a ring on her finger, the only remaining part of her. A woman laborer had a foot in a shoe
left sticking out of a burned pile of gray ashes. Immediately the town's women became aids bringing
"wine, lint, and bandages" to the wounded. Statistics are cold and passionless, but reality exposes the
actual sorrow and grief of wars.
Julia Ward Howe from New England and Ann Jarvis from
West Virginia share the honor of founding Mother's Day for the purpose of
international peace. Howe, in 1870, wrote,
"The voice of murder is not the balance of
justice. Blood does not wipe out murder nor violence indicate possession, as
men have often forsaken the plow for the sword of murder at the summons of
war.”
In
1881 Clara Barton and friends founded the American Red Cross in Washington, DC.
Women auxiliaries have been active for centuries with "angels,"
volunteer nurses, helping soldiers and veterans in partnership with the
military as they bring aid for natural disasters as well. During
WWII women were models for "Rosie the Riveter" illustrations in which
they portrayed the distaff side of corporate industrial war. One poster
depicted a factory woman wearing a red and white polka dot scarf tied in a knot
on her hair while she flexed her arm beside the words, "We can do
it!" But the most famous one
that Norman Rockwell designed for a cover on The Saturday Evening Post magazine
showed a brawny woman model with her foot holding down a copy of Hitler's
manifesto Mien Kampf. The original poster sold at Sotheby's
for $5 million! Female clout
during wars and their aftermaths is priceless today. One should never underestimate the power of women.
From
experience females have become relentless in their attempt to abolish all wars,
already illegal through International Law, International Criminal Court (ICC),
Geneva Protocol and Convention for Rights of Children. Again, toxic agent laws
forbid urban fighting on streets–war zones–where women and children are trapped
in the slaughter and mayhem. There, many die or end up in tents within refugee
war camps.
Today parents who have lost sons and
daughters in the futility of war, realize their children have been sacrificed
as targets on battlefields–under power of old tarnished leaders with puffed-up
egos never having suffered from senseless terrorism as they pride themselves
wrapped in epaulette's, brass buttons and commander's emblems out of harm's
way–the paradox of war. History
records brave General Washington and other leaders marching with their men into
battle. Many were thrown off their
horses numerous times, with 700,000 men and a million horses also losing their
lives during the Civil War between the North and the South.
Besides
protecting their youths, women historically have had to defend themselves
against rape, especially during combat.
Two million German women during WWII were victims of rape, as were
Jewish women during the holocaustic Shoah–blatant genocide as well. Rape occurs in all wars where
testosterone is high–and also to get enemy blood into foreign lands, the Troy
Horse of war. Mongol Genghis Kahn in his reign of terror reputedly fathered
thousands of heirs having his own blood.
Someone once said, "It's a wonder we all don't come from ancient
male conquistadors!"
Today deluded, depressed young combat
soldiers suffer from lifelong handicaps, amputations, psyche wards, nightmares
of those killed and those doing the killing–extreme post-war stress and
distress. Sadly thousands of
combat soldiers commit suicide from experiencing gore and slaughter of war,
even those manning drones out of harm's wary, now the main cause of death in
the United States.
Today war veterans march side-by-side
women, all activists seeking peace. Ever since 2003, over forty thousand soldiers
have dropped out of the army for moral reasons against violence and terrorism
of war. Ironically the military banned women from combat believing they are
"ill-suited for battle." Army General Elizabeth Hoisington opposed
women joining the infantry. She questioned, "It's bad enough that men must
suffer. But do we have to make young women suffer, too?"
The answer is
"No." But women are used to seeing blood, lame excuse for excluding
females who have a long history of being combat soldiers after centuries of
experience. However, instead of sacrificing any youth in slaughter, women are now up in arms to enforce punitive action against all vengeful wars of peril.
The most abominable atrocity of rich-man's corporate wars is worldwide lethal
ammunition aborting and distorting war-torn embryos. Many of these infants are
born of combat parents in contact with "depleted" 238 highly
cancerous uranium (DU) combined with other lethal agents. The military blows to
smithereens (word coined in 1940s-1950s, beginning of the nuclear age) its own
children!
Discerning
women want to drop the "L" out of war glory. Bellicose, bombastic-tempered explosive
wars have no glory as they even cause catastrophic earthquakes, hurricanes,
floods, and famines that in turn trigger tsunamis that blow up nuclear
ractors–all of which increases poverty. Jeannette Rankin, first female elected
to Congress, said, "You can't win a war any more than you can an
earthquake." In the second Persian Gulf War over 500,000 children starved
from intentional US sanctions, what harms children the most. Matt Taibi of Rolling
Stone Magazine wrote, "Why should any child starve in war?"
Wars
are carbon-boot filth, the worst serial crimes and biggest gas-guzzlers and CO2
polluters on the globe, with gun powder (that changes weather conditions) made
from carbon, sulfur and saltpeter.
In
summary many women want to empty the entire contents of Pandora's Box by
advocating international government Departments of Internal Peace for real defense–check and balance. Enormous amounts of federal funds would be saved from wars
costing zillions and instead be used for unbiased education and health care for
everyone. Through a world coalition of Peace Departments, national funds from
absence of aggression by enforcing the end of illegal munitions, could fund
free unbiased education and health care for everyone, with millions left over.
Meanwhile government funds are stolen from young people seeking education and
healthcare, often homeless combat veterans. As General Eisenhower said,
"The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of
scientists, the hopes of the children." One powerful Predator Drone costs
$5 million.
Women
are also in favor of saluting brave uniformed peace activists with
honor–medals, colorful ribbons, (originating with Native Americans) and
epaulettes for human services, as well as service perks. There are more than
enough natural disasters for heroes to be honored through service employment,
such as National Guard, without anyone sent over seas for youths to shoot up
other youths, what destroys and breaks up families. Mothers everywhere are asking. "Is this human
devastation worth a few cloth battle stripes?"
The
Roman Empire fell from war instability. Offensive
war department costs are swamping America today as it sinks from industrial war
contamination. Waves of lobbying sharks, secret resentful espionage as
spyglasses peer into spyglasses in comical cartoons, and bloody dollar-sign
eyeballs bulge for excessive battleships and airplanes. Top-heavy metal for
corporate industrial wars and nuclear bombs for unlawful threats (since these
devices are illegal), sink all other needs. Seven or more hydrogen bombs were dropped into heating
oceans as toxic battleship and radioactive submarines are purposely sunk into
seas killing wildlife and nature as they pollute the seas and mutate reproduction
organs of all animals, under the excuse of making coral reefs. After centuries
of endless madness, women, as peace workers have learned to fight with power
coming from their hearts and minds, without the coward's crutch of nuclear
bombs and radioactive missiles. Black powder alone causes weather changes.
Today's horrifying, drastic storms reflect a planet sick of wars with the
military using climate warfare through micromagnetic and lasr devices to win
wars and cause drastic storms and earthquakes, as it did when bombing the Ho
Chi Minh Trail running through Laos to extend a monsoon season to stop enemy
supplies from getting through. This nation is the most bombed nation with
millions of cluster bombs, in forms of bomblets that are still killing children.
More than 40 years US metal from these bombs during the Vietnam War are still
supplying a recycle industry as teams of Laotian women detonate dud bombs with
numerous deaths in the process. Male war historians seldom calculate the deaths
of aftermath aggression in their zeal to describe the thrill of bloody battle
scenes.
Flame throwing, roaring explosions, rocket
missiles, detonations of carbon combustion, sulfurous chemical mushroom clouds,
and illegal cluster, buster bombs filled with General Shrapnel's 1784 invention
of ever lasting misery are still manufactured to fill a Devil's arsenal from
Hell. Aren't the makers of these
satanic weapons responsible for war deaths, too? The entire system of war is a domino game of devastation.
Killing
of youths, women, and non-combatants through "collateral damage"
violates human rights. When will taxpayers stand their ground against the game
of war that is annihilating Earth and its people?
Worldwide
corporate-profit-wars are vaporizing human beings. A crime alone is committed when little kids fear for good
reason the sky is falling as people are zapped away like flies from deadly
drones.
All this plus leaking nuclear waste dumps
is sounding a death toll for Earth and all life. We are for whom the bells toll. No wonder extraterrestrials haven't landed among flaming
explosions and radioactive missiles blasting the sky! They must shake their
heads and turn away to return to myriads of heavenly bodies not chomping to
blow each other up.
But militants hit
rock bottom with holocaustic genocide as youths are ordered to kill youths with
baby aborting munitions now all outlawed by International Humanitarian Criminal
Crime Law. Civilians are affected in the same way, as genetic youth-killing
goes on generation after another–all for devil-war.
Since radioactive,
biological, and chemical clean-up is more expensive than the cost of the
original weaponry, its poisonous waste is now insidiously made into radioactive
"spent" bullets having enough power to blow holes in tank armor as it
also invades women's wombs through DNA. Remember when the incarcerated
Ploughshare Nuns carried out civil disobedience against nuclear arsenals when
Iraq in 2003 was invaded, attacked and occupied–a nation that never assaulted
the US, with an administration committing war crimes.
It is impossible for anyone to know the
ongoing death count of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki holocausts as well as present
day genocide. Women in battlefield cities are compelled to bury their infants
with no help since many have lost their husbands and sons during agonizing
aggression.
A
corporate power-hungry federal government tested Agent Orange herbicide (drums
marked with orange paint for poison), first on American indigenous people on
reservations. Their ancestors on sovereign lands were originally attacked
through biological, genocidal warfare–the first of its kind in America–blankets
from smallpox hospitals given as gifts–intentional extermination. In
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Agent Orange also causes abnormalities and diseases
from the Vietnamese War. Millions of gallons of this surplus herbicide were
clandestinely buried in South Korea at military bases that in the aftermath of
war continue to pollute water with little children dying the first from lethal
poisons .
Nuclear
waste accumulated ever since WWII is stored on American Indian reservation
lands at Hanford, Washington, world's first plutonium reactor site and oldest,
largest nuclear dump. At this base it is leaking hydrogen that is in danger of
blowing up, what also affects Oregon and the Columbia River.
Reckless, irresponsible military bases are
also causing this worldwide contamination–caustic, hazardous fuels toxic war
contaminants. Not even the army knows how many US abandoned bases are scattered
over the planet. But some people
have estimated 5000 of these occupation posts reflect political, imperial
foot-holds–foreign military muscle overseas. A crawl went across TV screens
prior to September 11, 2001–a threat of catastrophe to America's most important
strategic cities if bases were not removed from Islam's most holy lands–Saudi
Arabia. This warning was completely ignored. Would the Feds permit foreign
military bases causing birth deformities on US soil?
Post-war
commercial pesticides and herbicides, originally resulting from Nazi
development of war nerve gases, increase Parkinson disease in general, with
soldiers having brain trauma blows from war, also at risk. The alarming rise of
Lou Gehrig nerve disease among soldiers is great concern, too.
All
these war offenses are indefensible, but the absolute worst ones come from
birth-deforming, retarding agents that are now causing a world pandemic as
illegal munitions handed by combat soldiers are going from parent to child. These chemical, radiological killers
are not only genetically causing genocide in foreign nations but the US is
killing its own soldiers through weapons of massive devastation–a tidal wave of
backlash grotesque deformities and retardation affecting all future generations.
With everyone owning loaded guns, the school shooting madness will only get
worst as deranged people pull out their guns and shooting at more than those
texting in movie theaters,
When
US-led troops attacked and occupied Fallujah, Iraq this town was bombarded
twice with illegal chemical warfare–white sulfur, napalm, depleted uranium, and
munitions full of lead and mercury, all of which cause grotesque birth
defects–war babies born without brains and eyes, as well as faceless, brainless
two-headed infants, missing legs and arms, and organs formed outside of the
uterus in a world pandemic from outlawed weapons. Bob Dylan wrote in his song Masters
of Wars:
"You've thrown the worst
fear that can ever be hurled, fear to bring children into the world, for
threatening my baby unborn and unnamed, you ain't worth the blood that runs in
your veins."
This whole scenario is a dreadful miscarriage
of justice. Ironically, more females than males are born among combat parents
intensely exposed to horrendous toxicants that cause altered genes and
mutations. War turkeys, unless kept on a short leash, will eventually cause
their own extinction as well as the rest of the world. Jill Stein, physician
and US candidate for president warned that war "mercury is killing our
children." Another presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, chided
America for having more to offer than bombs and military technology. She called for eliminating many
military bases where dangerous oil contamination exudes from industrial dumped
waste and rusty war gear poisoning soil, drinking water, and milk given
children.
Women are up in arms over despicable war
contamination causing unnatural world disasters. The Dixie Chicks were persecuted for singing anti-war
songs. Code Pink activists are
women against war. Medea Benjamin spoke out and graphically demonstrated with
"bloody" hands the realistic picture of aggression before Congress.
child-deforming, youth-killing wars. As a protestor of war she was manhandled
and ended up with a broken arm in Turkey in 2014.
"First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said, “I cannot believe
that war is the best solution.” Ann Frank in her "Diary looked to the
heavens for cruelty to stop and peace to return again. Actor Jessica Lange is
"hopeful that our children and children's children will not be of a
warring nature," a call for a change from military solutions to diplomatic
ones.
With tongue in cheek Mark Twain's satirical
war prayer mocks pious aggression for emboldening foreign women and children to
suffer and die in agonizing war–a real eye-opener of human lust to attack and
occupy other nations. The Canadian
War Child program supports war orphans who have lost their parents, another
tragedy of war. Activist Cindy Sheehan whose son was killed in Iraq said,
"I don't want to put any more children in the hands of warriors and their
war machines." Meanwhile, accumulative rockets' red flares continue to
burst into sacred wind and air.
Today Lady Liberty symbolically hangs her
head in shame. Land and sea mines
continue to kill children in explosions lurking in wars' aftermaths, all in the
name of a deity and safety.
Listen to wisdom of dark-complexioned
prophets from Asia, India, the Middle East and Africa–Buddha, Confucius, Jesus,
Mohammed, Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama–peacemakers who do no harm. Nelson Mandela wrote "education
[for youths] is the most powerful weapon to change the world." Mother
Teresa from Macedonia said, "Children of the world are the most precious
gifts." Amma of India with her universal "hug," especially for
children who are never hugged, has more power than weaponry since love conquers
all. Not one of these courageous
humanitarians carried ammunition, not even a pebble for a slingshot.
And listen to the sad memory of a young
American combat veteran:
“A
hundred teen-age boys picked out of mud, zipped into plastic bags and
air-mailed home to Mom. . . ditches full of screaming children . . . land once
green and graceful . . . charred and gutted–not even a bird would sing there
again. . . . "
–courtesy
of poet Philip Appleman, American Humanist award winner; served in US Army Air Corps and US. Merchant Marine
Corps, author of The Twelfth
Year of War
