5/30/05 Part 2

Picasso's GUERNICA.  i first experienced a copy of this painting while attending college.  Picasso knew something.  He knew the insanity of war.  Guernica was a Spanish town of 7,000 people, bombed 4/26/l937 by German warplanes in a 'dry-run' sent by Hitler to aid Gen. F. Franco during the Spanish Civil War. 

"a group of women and children...They were liften high intothe air, maybe 20 feet or so and they started to break up.  Legs, arms, heads, and bits and pieces flying everything." (from an eyewitness account)  www.crf-usa.org/bria/bria15_3.html In 3 hours and after ensuing machine gunning of remaining civilians who were running away from what was left of the town, a total of l,000 people of Guernica died in that attack on their town.

Picasso knew the historic significance of the unprecedented, unprovoked attack on those civilians and the new imperative it birthed in the ways and means of war. No longer was war waged solely on targets such as munitions factories and military import, but also now innocent civilians were included.

While mostfolks of every echelon of every society in that era knew as we know now that bombing of civilians is barbaric, uncivilized and can surely be called "evil", a General Guilio Douhet was among the early supporters of civilian annihilation. He predicted that leaders would quickly surrender once the civilian strategy went into effect.  As we know now, tyrants and despots have little care about their peoples/populations and, no, General, this doesn't lead to quick end to fighting!  www.crf-usa.org/terror/civilian_htm

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Numbers.  I imagine every speck of this planet's earthen soil has seen bloodshed at one time or another.  Where to begin?  It's overwhelming to attempt.  Yet important to recognize.  Basics?  The numbers and sources may vary and do, yet just from the 20th century's major, minor wars, genocides, democides, atrocities, insurgencies and so forth, the numbers are truly staggering. (this doesn't even begin to include anytimes prior to that century or this new one)...

So, through democides, starvation, executions, disappearances, massacres, and so forth, for example, WWI (l9l4-8 caused the deaths of some l5M-25M people (not to mention animals, forests, etc.) with approximately 8,500,000 miltary casualties and l3,000,000 civilian casualties.  http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat6.htm

Russian Revolution? (l9l7-22) caused about 9M deaths (2M combat; 5M famine and other resultant causes...Stalin? (l924-53) 20M and so forth just on that continent alone at that time.

WWII?  (l937-45) 55,000,000 of that 22M military.  Of the civilians:  l2M in camps from fascist terror; l4.5M from blockades, epidemics, hunger; l.5M from bombings ...War dead were from Europe, China, Japan, US.

Hitler alone is believed to have orchestrated with his underlings the extermination of some 5M-6M Jews in death camps, massacres and through dislocation, malnutrition and abuse in ghettos.  Roma (gypsies) total from 200,000-500,000. Homosexuals from l0,000-220,000. Handicapped euthenized 70,000-275,000. The Wehrmacht:  l.5M Jews; 3.3M POWs; 5M-7M non-Jewish civilians.

Whatever the numbers, sources, consistencies and inconsistencies in the data, it's all simply mind-boggling and heartbreaking.  So, today, let's mourn the loss of civilian peoples everytime, everywhere, then and now.

Over the years, i've done some reading, inner soul-searching and spoken with many people about the issues and causes and war and peace.  Part 3 shares some of the exploration and findings to possibly consider this Memorial Day.