Sham War

Lee Berman · 09 Aug 2010, 04:09 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: severiansola at hotmail.com (Lee Berman)
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 00:09:33 -0400
Subject: (urth) Sham War
Message-ID: <SNT123-W27A52C34E665FC106F91D2CF940 at phx.gbl>

>Dave Lebling- The Ascians are backed by a larger Power that really 
>doesn't care about them. The war is barely noticed day-to-day at home 
>in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth forces are multi-national. Etc. 
>I'm sure none of these details are new to you, but they all hammer home 
>the Ascian War/Korean War analogy, in which there is a larger struggle 
>outside that war, but that war is in itself significant, not a sham.

I certainly agree with the autobiographical nature of the Korean/Ascian
war. And I certainly agree that Wolfe thinks wars are very significant
to the people who are fighting in them. Perhaps Wolfe is suggesting they 
are not so significant to the greater powers which put the war into motion 
and even less significant to the higher power above that.

Regardless of Mr. Wolfe's personal political leanings, I have a difficult
time thinking (based on his writing) that he feels God and Jesus wanted the
USA and democracy to win and N. Korea and communism to lose and that this
was God's significant battlefield where He would vanquish His enemies, etc.

>From an Urthly, cosmic, divine point of view, I don't see how the 
Commonwealth/Ascia war can be seen as significant when everyone who won the
war, lost the war, all their families and friends and fellow citizens and 
comrades would all be dead and submerged within a few decades. A long, 
bitterly fought war with so much resources spent, so many dead, so many 
wounded and...for what?

I can imagine Gene Wolfe reading The Bible and, at the end, thinking the 
same about the Korean War.

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