I have recently noticed a steady TV broadcasting of films and documentaries on war. Even on the PBS stations there have been programs that attempt to claim documentary or educational status. But with all of these programs and films there is at least an implied glorification of war. At the very least we are saying that war is so important a topic that we need to spend millions of dollars and hours upon hours documenting it. Many of the films outright glorify the destruction and murder of the enemy and the heroes are the characters who have killed or destroyed the most without any sense of what they are actually doing! The so called documentaries feature the same questions of veterans, many of them recognizable faces because of their frequent appearances on these programs. And they recall how they killed the "Japs" or "Krauts" and how they fought for their country, missed their wives or mothers back home. They only occasionally show any sense of remorse as you can almost see the conflict going on in their aged minds as the apparent fading and confusing memories make their way though the mind's eye. Recently I also noticed an obituary of one of the pilots who dropped an Atomic Bomb on Japan in 1945. The article took note that the man, after being questioned many times, has never expressed any sense of remorse for what he did. Imagine dropping the most murderous and destructive weapon in history on a civilian, non combatant population including children, and not feeling any remorse? This is what Gandhi is talking about when he says war "demoralizes those who are trained for it". And the so called "Christian" Churches do not speak against war in even 10% of the intensity of how they do against the sexual immorality of teenagers, or homosexuality. They are virtually silent in the face of the murder, rape, pillaging, destruction of War as they claim to be the voices of the "Holy Spirit" of God or the "Vicars" of Jesus. Some Churches even try to "justify" war in some twist of high theology or archair quote from the Bible, ignoring the words of Jesus himself "Love your enemies" "turn the other cheek" and so on, the person they claim to be the very foundation of their faith. Yes, war "outrages every beautiful canon of morality".
And we have heard the tragic stories of young soldiers in Iraq who have raped and murdered innocent young Iraqi girls or whole families. In their confused rage, perhaps even at themselves and their own actios, they have done these things as they attempted to, in perhaps some kind of naive, idealistic way, make for themselvas a "path of glory" and watched in horror as it turned into a path of nightmarish doom.