SINCE WAGING WAR SACRIFICES OUR HUMANITY...
DO WE NEED A NEW KIND OF MILITARY TECHNOLOGY?

There are many people in this country who believe that the United States and NATO are responsible for creating the war in the Ukraine. Russia's main stated goals were to demilitarize Ukraine and deNazify the political and military power existing today. Those who hold that opinion can understand why Putin believes that having the Ukraine join NATO with the possibility of placing weapons near the Russian borders is an existential threat to Russia. I don't believe that whether his position is ultimately based on fact or not, that this is some kind of psychotic delusion. The degree that certain powers in the West, including the United States, have targeted Russia by positioning the NATO presence in Ukraine- certainly doesn't lessen my understanding of Putin's fears.

Still, I have heard some of these people who detest how the West has failed to acknowledge Putin's wish for security- remark that they hate the war. I join with them. I hate the bloody, disgusting war that targets directly and indirectly civilians- men, women and children- and, yes, but also young and older soldiers who are also very much human beings as well. To me, the type of war inflicted on Ukraine is plain out murder, the type of murder which is supported by many citizens openly and happily and is paid by tax dollars . Many of those paying their taxes resent their use for self-serving military adventures that serve certain individuals and institutions but wreak death and destruction of the innocent.

Some wish the war to end because Putin has threatened the use of nuclear weapons if his country is existentially challenged. I disagree with the use that threat- but both East and West have spent trillions on creating these terrible weapons- and I believe that Putin has chosen that threat because nothing else might stop Western encroachment if Ukraine joined NATO. But, of course, he did not want to use them immediately- because he knows the dire planetary destruction that might take place (MAD). So, is he going to pull a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King defense against Ukraine? No. He knows that wouldn't work?

So Putin is in the middle of the trap brought to us by the military technology that causes massive death and distruction vs the use of nuclear weapons that would bring an end to the threat but perhaps the end of everything in the process. This kind of kill and maim weaponry forces leaders of the countries on this planet into an unspeakable quandary within themselves- must they murder innocents to save themselves?

Why would I say "murder?" Some would say that violence like this is justified- that there is no other choice.

I say, "No," there are other choices. For instance, electric cars are probably a good example of a technology (along with others) that were chosen over oil and gas technology.

In an article in history places (https://historyplaces.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/the-car-in-president-wilsons-garage) it says the following regarding a Washington, DC exhibition about former President Wilson's relationship to electricity": "The artifact I found most interesting is a blue electric car in the garage on loan for the run of the exhibition. The Wilsons were early fans of electric cars, and Mrs. Wilson is thought to be the first woman in Washington to drive one. Electric cars were more popular with women at the time because they didn’t require cranking and were essentially maintenance-free. Of course, they didn’t offer speed either. Men wanted that. Wilson owned a 1918 Milburn Electric and supposedly drove it on the White House grounds. It could reach a speed of 35 m.p.h. and travel about 60-75 miles per charge."

So the thought was there way before the electric car became seriously contemplated and developed in the so-called modern world. But when the car was developed massively for consumers, there was a clear choice between oil and gas and other technologies- I am saying we made a choice of the military technology of today which is largely the technology to kill and maim other human beings with the ultimate and tragic political and military outcome: the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

Nonetheless, there has been considerable effort to develop non-lethal weapon technology. The video I have placed below show some of the history and some of the limitations and utility of these weapons.

Of course, if non-lethal weapons were used in war- and the goal was to capture the enemy alive, a whole new rehabilitative process would have to be developed to deal with prisoners whose mindset might be quite different than adversaries who actually would rather capture than kill and whose form of rehabilitation was solidly in direction of beneficially humanizing those captured.

Am I therefore opposed to lethal technology? Absolutely not. Sometimes there really is no choice. Should all guns be taken away from citizens? Again, absolutely not (in my opinion).

If you shoot someone who is threatening to kill an innocent, whether your child or a stranger walking down the street- because that person is armed with deadly intent, I consider your use of a gun to be self defense. I do not consider self-defense to be murder.

As you can see from the video below, the vision of defensive weaponry I am presenting here- requires a massive change in humanity's attitude towards ware- and a radically different and more advanced technology and supremely more real intelligence in the treatment of prisoners.

https://youtu.be/Jfv159avkOE