CULTURE

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell." — William Tecumseh Sherman

On February 23, 1967, the twenty-third episode of the original Star Trek, A Taste of Armageddon, first aired on NBC.

It was a great episode, one of many great episodes from that series that resonated with viewers. Perhaps not being remembered as a game-changer as many of them should have been, but without question, it has become more relevant and timely over the years. A delicate blend of entertainment and in-your-face commentary on how screwed up our world has become.

So, why is it still relevant 57 years later?

Because war is hell.

It's not a video game. It's not a movie, no matter the budget spent on CGI or the awards won for acting and cinematography. It's not romantic or quaint; however many poems or songs have been written about it.

In unmistakable terms, it's death and devastation. It's never legendary or thought-provoking: even with names like the Hundred Year War and the War of the Roses. It's Armageddon—a day of reckoning.

And yet, we still speak of war in terms of right and wrong. Of justice and inequity. The suffering of one people imposed upon them by other people must be stopped for the sake of peace. And yet, we keep doing it.

We elect charismatic leaders who shout, stomp, and utter words that resonate as the aches and pains of society are rounded up and presented back to the same people as if they're seeing them for the first time.

Here's injustice. Here's your job going to someone else. Here's what we should be doing.

And as the words echo endlessly and begin to make more and more sense, words like fight, defend, and war enter the narrative. As if opposing ideals are enemies at the gate that must be repelled.

We use war, like janitors use bleach, to cleanse areas that have become untenable. Filthy with ideas and beliefs that just won't do. War becomes a solution. Burn down the forest to get rid of the wolves.

The Backstory

The basic premise of this episode is that the Starship Enterprise visits the planet Eminiar VII on a diplomatic mission and unwittingly finds themselves embroiled in a war that's been "raging" between Eminiar VII and its rival Vendikar for generations.

These two planets have "evolved" their conflict and now eschew actual physical violence and destruction.

They achieved this by engaging, not in a real war as we all know it, but in a computerized simulation — where those "killed" are instructed to proceed to elimination chambers where they are removed permanently and quietly from society as casualties.

All neat and orderly, where death is real but not messy. Where destruction is replaced by calculus and statistics, life continues without all the chaos and inconvenience associated with wars in the past.

Unfortunately, while orbiting the planet, the Enterprise and its crew become casualties and are ordered by Annon 7 (Eminiar VII's Premier) to proceed en masse to an elimination chamber — thank you very much.

Eerie and emotionally unsettling, this episode speaks to the way humankind covers up atrocities and craven ideals in more acceptable terms. Like genocide becoming ethnic cleansing.

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon. Napoleon Bonaparte

The outcome of the story in typical Star Trek and James T Kirk fashion is that the residents of Eminiar VII and Vendikar are pushed to the brink of actually suffering the extreme losses and insanity of war unless they change, face what they doing and find a way to resolve it.

They do, when the alternative is no longer a summary sheet of causalities checked off but real blood and devastation filling the streets.

The special effects back then weren't over the top — shoestring budgets meant shoestring effects. But we didn't need to see large chunks of the planet hurtling out into space. The idea was the important part. The concept that war could be sanitized down to a chessboard was abhorrent to Capt. Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise. Wars were fought out in the open.

They are disgusting, inhumane, and no doubt intended to scare the participants into thinking twice before doing it again.

There's a scene in the movie Gladiator where Russell Crowe's character talks to one of his commanders, readying for battle, and orders him to unleash hell.

Isn't that what it's supposed to feel like?

A deterrent is something that stands in the way, like a fence or a wall; a minefield between sides, or a mean, hungry dog guarding a yard. A deterrent is not a suggestion. It's not even death, not when it keeps returning for more.

The war is supposed to be the last resort. The final act before... well, before things end. But somehow we've moved war further up the line.

History is filled with not-so-great reasons for beginning one. A crazed, politically motivated man shot and killed an archduke and his wife in 1914, and weeks later, World War I started.

Because that was the only solution. Because that was the honorable thing to do.

We're like that. Humankind. We punch our way out of a paper bag rather than just taking it off.

It's 2024, and we still have pirates roaming the seas around the Arabian Peninsula. We still have Russia fighting wars to reclaim what it lost because the system didn't work.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I guess that saying had to start somewhere.

Wars don't work. History is littered with ones that started and stumbled along for years before the warring sides reached a truce. Not a solution. Not a resolution to the original problem. Just a time-out.

Why?

Because the idea that your land is now my land is not an actual problem. Because you have it, what we don't have is not an actual problem. Because wars are not started by those who fight them.

If they were, if the soldiers got to sit at the table and ask themselves, Should we or shouldn't we, how many wars would actually be fought?

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. " — Dwight D. Eisenhower