It's a myth the world is civilized. Human and animal life are being devalued, degraded and dehumanized like never before.
Consider:
The Pentagon has rewarded Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller with the Distinguished Service Medal. Miller is the thug who introduced dehumanizing interrogation to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Some of his pitiable, low-ranking Army protégés, however, are in prison for torture they thought Gen. Miller expected them to inflict on Iraqi prisoners.
Other GIs are on trial in Iraq for murder and rape, after they claim their commanding colonel told them to kill military-age males.
Colorado holds a serial killer who claims he's murdered 49 women. Phoenix police have arrested two serial killers, and are desperately searching for one more on the loose.
Before this year is out, another 16,000 or more Americans will be murdered.
Human Rights Watch estimates 30,000 to 50,000 Iraqis have been killed since United States forces attacked in 2003. More than 2,500 U.S. soldiers have died, joining the rosters of some 430,000 other American troops who've died in battles from World War I through Gulf War I.
Israel and Hezbollah are raining explosives on each other, killing hundreds of people and reducing parts of Israel and Lebanon to rubble that will be cleared and rebuilt in time for another outbreak of pointless war.
In Sudan's Darfur region, as many as 400,000 have been killed in ghastly genocide attacks.
This carnage is a trifle compared to the 62 million who died in World War II (37 million of them civilians) as the price of a peace that was only temporary before wars resumed.
The world is no safer, no more peaceful. Bank on this: The next generation will be forced to squander billions of dollars and thousands of lives for another pointless war somewhere that politicians claim is necessary for "lasting peace."
So, just as the tobacco companies assured Americans who now fill cemeteries that smoking did not cause cancer, smokestack industry and politicians now assure us global warming isn't harmful to life or the Earth.
If the Grim Reaper of war doesn't wipe out more millions, then an Earth slowly baking in increased temperatures from industrial abuses will do in the human race eventually.
Not everyone greets this macabre scenario with gloom, of course. End Timers praying for the Rapture and the cataclysmic end of the earth are utterly joyous that mankind has gone berserk with cruelty, brutality and killing while destroying the environment for an extra margin of industrial profit.
Hallelujah!
Pat Murphy
