Comments on: Wars and Rumors of Wars

By: Clark Goble

Clark Goble — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 15:44:44 +0000

Jader, I don’t think it’s conscious rebellion so much as ignorance.

By: jader3rd

jader3rd — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 05:51:41 +0000

By most accounts we’re at the most peaceful period in world history. Yet public perception of violence and conflict are completely out of whack with that. Most people think there’s more going on than at any prior period.

I don’t think that most people think that there’s more going on than before. I think that there’s just enough people in lesser populated states, who like to rebel against scientists, knowledge, and the educated. So when they see official reports that we’re actually had a very peaceful time, they feel a need to rebel against that. If they didn’t, then those attacking their religion would win.

By: jader3rd

jader3rd — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 05:47:46 +0000

I always interpreted Rumors of Wars as being Saber Rattling; not war itself, but something which still causes provocation amongst large groups of people.

By: Nathaniel Givens

Nathaniel Givens — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 01:13:47 +0000

Dan-

As for the 1991 Gulf War, not everyone was on the side of the US…

I’m sure you’re right about that, but what I was just trying to convey were my impressions at the time, when I was 10 years old. And back then it really did seem like everyone was on our side, to me at least.

(And yes, I had concrete–albeit naive–opinions about world events at that age. I was absolutely full of sadness and anger as I described the suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests to my younger brother and fantasized about sending American fighter jets to blow up the tanks and save the students. It was right around the time I turned 8. I was a weird kid.)

By: Dan Lewis

Dan Lewis — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 15:25:17 +0000

Good post. I think that the rumors of wars can be used throughout history. Before mass communication, governments and military outfits relied on weeks-old information about trouble afoot in distant lands, which sometimes wasn’t even occurring. Speaking of the Middle East, the 1967 War between Israel and Egypt plus Arab allies was largely the result of an escalation of tensions caused by misleading Soviet intelligence that Israel was planning an attack on Syria (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/the-soviet-union-and-the-six-day-war-revelations-the-polish-archives). As for the 1991 Gulf War, not everyone was on the side of the US. Many in the Arab world at the time were holding onto the ideal of a larger unity among Arab countries and favored Saddam’s annexation of Kuwait as a starting point of a new Arab unity, one that Gamal Abd al-Nasser of Egypt had failed to achieve in the 1960s. Even if many governments of Arab countries were against Saddam’s actions, they stood on the side of Iraq as a gesture of solidarity with public opinion in their countries and because they thought that US interference would only make things worse. Algeria, Jordan, and the Palestinian Territories are prime examples of this.

By: Clark Goble

Clark Goble — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 01:54:51 +0000

Rwanda and Serbia show up partially on American’s radar but not as much as the relatively small 9/11 attack. Somewhat understandable but still when gauging the world a big confirmation bias. Other wars like in Ethiopia, Somalia or Sudan rarely show up at all. Neither does conflicts in Congo or the like. So we are as a people biased. In both directions. We don’t notice the wars but neither do we notice the massive improvement in the human condition world wide. Effectively we are a very provincial people who tend to judge the world in terms of the fears of middle class America.

By: el oso

el oso — Tue, 21 Feb 2017 00:59:02 +0000

I have always assumed Steve’s interpretation as the primary explanation of this phrase. There are plenty of conflicts that do not show up much on US TV, but that does not mean that I am not aware of them or do not acknowledge them.
The level of TV coverage should not be used as a metric for the intensity of the conflict. The first Gulf war was mostly bombing, some good maneuvering and a bunch of Iraqis surrendering.
For another example, the worst genocide of my lifetime took place within 500 miles of lots of TV cameras and reporters yet got almost zero live coverage. The Cambodian killing fields were fairly remote and did not fit the dominant press narrative, so they got almost no coverage. Jonathan’s point is also highly relevant to that episode.

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 22:52:21 +0000

These are some great observations, thank you.

A way that I have always interpreted the phrase is to mean “wars and rumors of [impending] wars”. There have been many times when the speculation and “drumbeat” that war is about to erupt has been overwhelming. Think of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Think of the mood in America about a week after 9/11. News media generally call these situations “tensions”; I always thought “rumor of war” would also fit the bill.

By: BevP

BevP — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 21:06:06 +0000

I smile at the irony of this at the time when President Trump has so confidently drawn our attention to an atrocity that did not occur in Sweden last Friday.

By: Clark Goble

Clark Goble — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 20:13:50 +0000

Great post. Not just wars proper but violence in general. By most accounts we’re at the most peaceful period in world history. Yet public perception of violence and conflict are completely out of whack with that. Most people think there’s more going on than at any prior period. Same with terrorism. Even with Al Queda and ISIS terrorism is a pale shade of what it was when I was young. There were regular bombings in the US in the 70’s. One terrorist outfit, the Weather Underground, was responsible for between 25 and 40 bombings in 1975 in the US alone. There were over 100 plane hijackings in the 70’s. And crime was skyrocketing in that era peaking in the early 90’s then dropping quickly since. (Despite an uptick the last year partially due to unrest over police tactics)

By: Nathaniel Givens

Nathaniel Givens — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 16:40:22 +0000

That's a good point, Jonathan, and I can imagine situations like that growing even worse in the years to come. By which I simply mean that at least we have some awareness (meaning: news-conscious Americans) that there's an awful civil war in Syria, even if we have plenty of rumor when it comes to the exact participants and other details. I can imagine both scenarios where there are deadly, armed conflicts and we have no awareness and also where there is no major conflict, but we believe there is.

By: Jonathan Green

Jonathan Green — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 14:58:25 +0000

That’s a fantastic point, Nathaniel, although I think you can use the present tense throughout. In the current wars in the Middle East, for example, local reporters were some of the first targets, which left only competing versions of propaganda for outsiders trying to figure out what was going on. And if you’re relying on Western news outlets, it takes a long time to figure out the difference between experts, bloviators, and shills. Clearly there are wars going on, with hundreds of thousands of victims, but “wars and rumors of wars” is quite a good way to describe the situation.