I can only think of one just war we were ever involved in and I think you know the one.

Timing again!! Damn my slow computer! and my work-lagged brain!

Me too!

OK Prom. Thanks.

To me all human lives are very important in whatever scale you wish to measure them. I loathe having someone else assuming I could measure it in degrees of significance it in whatever way it is reported. 

Nite.

Of course, but we're talking about an urban situation here not a war.

Sierra Leone, Kosovo, WWI, Falklands?

It's an analogy, Prom.

If a population feels trapped and helpless, with a brutal dictator in charge, should they expect help?

Well, that's us. Who's going to help us? I don't see an orderly queue...

 We only have to wait five years. Imagine forty, or more!

Only five? Sucks to be them 

On the contrary, Prom, serial killing is the more acceptable side of murder.

Dramas love them, films love depicting them as maniacal geniuses, ITV's "Wire In the Blood" etc love making the audience guess with convoluted (and really half baked) motives that are revealed drip by drip.  TV and film love presenting serial killing as a creative artform with an added but convoluted integrity of a killers' noble mission - that mission is obviously flawed to the audience but never the less is frequently presented in sympathetic terms to ratchet up the intellectual entertainment value of a series of sadistic murders. 

You only have to look at all the serial murder serialisations that are included in newspapers or available from newsagents in glossy fortnightly magazines that you can put into a series binder.  The intention is that you're supposed admire the intellect and cunning of the sadistic murderer with all its grisly, salacious and perverted details - it's really a form of pornography.

I completely agree with you. 
But then look at some of the films around war - for example Saving Private Ryan and the Hurt Locker.

I personally don't like any sort of violence... gratuitous or otherwise.

Agree with SS up there.

Totally gobsmacked by the posts put by the OP in this thread, and all the sweeping generalisations.  Can't believe that someone who is concerned about a kitten being stuck up a tree (or stuck in a wheelie bin,) or someone who cares about one person close to them dying, is virtually being accused of not caring about the 1000s of soldiers who die every year! JUST because they care about that one kitten or that one person automatically means that they don't care about anyone else? ie' the 1000s of soldiers dying!  FFS, what a terrible thing to put.  And what a massively judgemental insinuation about people the OP doesn't even KNOW!

I think the difference is with the murder of one or two people, it is easier for us to identify with it - to imagine if it were your loved one .

With war, the sheer volumes of people killed makes it more distant and therefore easier to cope with because it is harder to personalise.. Doesn't make it any the less awful.

You only have to read books like "All quiet on the Western Front" or see films like "Schlinders List" to realise the absolute inhumanity of war and killing.

The Vagina Monologues brought home to me the brutality of war towards women.

War has been glorified over the years by historians, It is not glorious - it is sad and bloody and dirty.

Well said Issy. 

Thanks.

It took me ages to try and work out what I meant.

Well you worded it well. 

Bit quiet on here this morn...People sleeping off hangovers maybe???      gonna sign off now.  Laterz guys 

I'm on a roll now
When you hear about a murder in your own country, for example Derek Bird, the Wests, the Yorkshire Ripper, you do have a whole "that could so easily have been near me" going on in your head.

When the dead soldiers are brought back from Afghanistan you feel incredibly sad that these young men died for a useless cause.

However these young men, as awful and pointless as their deaths were, did at least have the chance and training to defend themselves. Most domestic victims of murder don't.
The act of agression in war is not the problem. It is the reason for the act of aggression.
Kitchener in the first world war is arguably responsible for sending countless of innocent young men to their deaths and for the killing of many more.
As the song goes...

"War, what is it good for, absolutely nothing."

Again, very well said Issy.  You're thinking exactly what I think.  What pisses me off is the implication (from some) which has happened a few times - on here AND in RL - that if you are upset about someone close to you dying, or your pet dying, but you don't sob yourself silly when a soldier dies, (a soldier you don't even know BTW!)  that it automatically means that you don't care about the 1000s of soldiers dying or the 1000s of people dying in floods and fires and earthquakes etc. 

I don't know ONE SINGLE PERSON who doesn't give a stuff that 1000s of people die in natural disasters and war every year.  9/11 brought more natural emotion and upset in most people I know , and also the floods in Oz and the earthquakes all over the world that cause devastation.... I, and everyone I know thinks this is awful... But just because we don't sob ourselves to sleep for every soldier and every war victim, but will cry if our cat gets killed; that doesn't make us heartless or uncaring...the very insinuation is insulting and offensive...

Anyway I am off now,  Have a great day. 

  at some of the comments here.  Someone got a bit carried way last night methinks.  Agree with the comments by Xochi, Karma, Cupcake and Issy.  

I agree with whoever said that soldiers are paid and trained to fight wars. I don't agree with civilian casualties but the soldiers themselves know what they are signing up for. That's not to say it's any easier when one of them is killed in action though. Especially if it's someone you know or from your area. I think that's when it hits home for most people. 

I don't know about anyone else but serial killers fascinate me. I don't agree with what they do and my opinions on the death penalty are quite well known on here (I think) but I love the workings of peoples minds. What makes them do these things?

As for things like people dying through domestic violence....I do think that is more personal because we probably all know someone who has been a victim of it or are a victim themselves. The same goes for pets dying. Innocent lives lost and that will always make me sad.

Good post Cagney. 

Cheers Sparkles 

I just don't see why it has to be an either/or situation. People can have varying degrees of compassion and upset depending on the situation and thier personal experience of it.

I was talking about society in general not particular people on here. It's okay, I wouldn't expect you to understand what I was talking about all I expect from you is your usual delirious nonsensical rant and you didn't disappoint me.

  Dear dear dear....  Not even a sniff of an apology for your hysterical rant on here last night, and all the offensive things you said.attacking people for not 'agreeing' with you, and allegedly not 'getting' what you were supposedly saying.   It was as plain as the nose on your face that you were attacking the people on here, and that is why you got the responses you did....  And predictably, you have only attacked my post and no-one else's...  You've shown your true colours Prom.  I have seen what you're like for a while, and now others have seen it too.  For that I am glad.  

have to agree with a couple of points prom made, tony blair and george bush are war criminals and should be in court facing charges  that other war criminals have faced.

they have got away with  it so far because they are on the same side that makes the rules.

and i do  believe we are suffering  from media 'horror fatigue' , honestly  how many of us have turned over  when another  soldier's body comes home, because we've seen it all before? - i don't know the answer, maybe as others have said, the  'gone bonkers' serial  killer has more of an impact because its more personal.

after all  no one could go to war and kill  tens of thousands  if it was  a personal , that would make you inhuman, wouldnt it?

we'd all be  pol pot.

Good post JB.......I agree with most of it, although I still have a great sadness when yet another young man is transported through Wootton Bassett as a direct result of the illegal wars that Blair and Bush's hubris led us into

I know thismay be because my son is in the army and constantly on some tour or another, but the moment I hear of a soldier killed in Afghanistan, I listen and I think of his family and I can feel it and it makes me feel very sad. I remember when my son wanted to join the army as a fairly fresh faced 18 year old, I asked him if he relished being shot and he tutted and said, mum, there are no wars anymore, I get to see the world and have an adventure. Well, how wrong he was, he's not a natural born killer.

Col, I was thinking of you when I read the OP. Your comment has made the point that so many of us couldn't. Just so ya know. 

If there was any justice the perpetrators of war would all be shut in a cell and left to get on with it themselves. Let them batter the crap out of each other if that's what they want to do.

I thought col's point was very poignant but I'm kind of avoiding my own thread now since I seem to have upset a few people. Just a FYI.

It's OK Prom. A lot said in the heat of the moment.

Less said now on this, sooner mended.

Chicken

Some way more knowledgeable (not hard) person than me did point out that if you're into a spot of murdering but paradoxically have a concern about your legacy then there is a minimum number you need to bump off.  Once you cross that perhaps incomprehensible number your bodies cease to mean so much.  Curiousity.

Fair enough, sorry Xoch, last night was entirely my fault 

I stayed in a house with a murderer once well he hadn't murdered anyone at that point...but he did

Closest I got was coming out a party I'd been doing on New Years morning in Brixton to be greeted by 350 squillion police and waist high tape everywhere, arresting our progress.  Had an afterparty to get to so scrambling about was done.  Turns our some poor f*ckers had been tied to chairs, tortured then set on fire a couple of doors along.

Oh aye, our school bully appeared to have discovered God and become a priest.  Via being sent to prison for a spot of homicide.

He was a dickwad tbh.

The young man who used to live behind me bludgeoned his nan to death with a hammer 

He doesn't live there anymore....