What is left of rebel territory?

PRE-READING TASK

1. Can a war be moral or justifiable: war for freedom and independence, for example?
2. Can a war be fought in such a way that it doesn’t hurt ordinary people?

War is an armed clash between nations because of hostility or military conflicts. In simple words, war is fighting between two sides. War, in my opinion, is useless because of its damaging results, which will be talked about in this paper. It brings suffering and death. Under no circumstance is war moral, even in cases of self-defence. There are just other ways to solve problems. Peace treaties are an easy way to end war. In a peace treaty, it is easy to settle the differences and come up with an agreement that both sides can decide on. That way the solution can be a compromise and problems will be fixed. Often it happens when one side can't agree so they decide that war is the only solution. Wars are begun with many different reasons: land conflicts, religious disagreements, and independence conflicts. This is a story about my grandfather's experience in World War II. It was horrifying and gruesome, but the story is not as bad as it was in real life.

In 1941, my grandfather, Mike Sabetai, was taken from his home by the Nazis, with 17 members of his family. He was taken to a war camp where he and others divide into groups. There were groups of people who could use their occupations to help them survive. If you weren't put in one of these groups, you were immediately brought to a gas chamber. There you would wait and be killed by gas. Luckily my grandfather was a barber. He used his skill as a tool to stay alive.

Everyone would be woken at 5: 00 a. m. and they would have to carry heavy things and run for miles. Then they would come back and do labour work. One normal torturous morning, my grandfather was going about his business and doing his work. Suddenly his name was called; he was to be brought to the chamber. He thought that it was the end. He followed a Nazi to the chambers. He was in a line with about six people. Suddenly a Nazi came running and yelling not to let Mike die because he gave good haircuts. My grandfather was saved. He still had his normal routine of having to do his morning work, though. In 1944, my grandfather was finally saved. He went back home to Greece where he met my grandmother, who also had a story that goes like his story. My grandfather returned home to find out none of the 17 members of his family were still alive. He lost his wife and 2 kids. His parents and brothers and sister were also dead. He lost everything and had nothing to live for. His trauma lived throughout his life. A tattoo on his arm always remained there. His hate for Nazis never died. Although he died last year physically, his life really ended in 1941. War was the traumatic dreadful for my grandfather. From this story alone, how is it possible to understand that any human deserves to be treated like this? In the mind of the Nazis, the Jews ruined their lives. Hitler brainwashed the Germans in the early to middle 1930s to think that Jews were the cause of all the problems. Although we know that it wasn't true the Nazis believed it. This is what led them to the holocaust. Israel made a law that the only people that could be executed were the Nazis that killed Jews in the World War. This law is still being used. This is one example of one war where people, completely innocent, were tortured, killed, and abused for reasons that are inhumane. In the minds of the Nazis it was the right thing to do. In my own opinion, war can never be justifiable. There are other ways of solving conflicts besides war. If everyone solved their problems with fighting, where would we be now? The Arabs decided that Israel was their land. There are many other times in history when the Arabs have taken this view. The 6-day war is an example when Arabs thought they should be rulers of Israel. They fought with Israel. This war still goes on. Although it isn't actually called " war", it is called " terrorism “. Terrorism is all over the streets of Israel. People are killed everyday. Another reason for war was over government. When the Vietnam War began, South Vietnam fought to be a democratic country. North Vietnam defeated South Vietnam. In this war alone, the United States lost 58, 000 soldiers.                

Most of these soldiers had family ties, children, wives, parents, and siblings. These soldiers will be missed forever. In Vietnam there were many bombs. Years after the war ended, soldiers were getting odd cases of diseases. No one knew what it was. Now we know it is something called " agent orange". This is a chemical that was released by the bombs. This chemical made many soldiers suffer from pain. In 1939, World War II began. In this war, Nazis wanted to gain absolute power. They wanted to control everything. They began with the Jews. They succeeded in killing 6 million. That's 6 million people that died for no logical reason. They not only died, they were tortured to their death. There just is no reason for people to have to die like that.

People shouldn't have to die over war, especially women and children. In the 11th and 12th centuries were the Crusades. European Christians wanted Israel to be the Christian homeland. The Muslims on the other hand, felt that it was their holy land and they didn't have to give it up. Most recently was the Gulf War. Iraq thought that they could just come and take over Kuwait. Kuwait had a very good oil supply, which brought in lots of money. Iraq wanted to come and just take it over. With help from other countries, Kuwait was able to fight them. In this war

there were a lot of deaths and there were many people getting sick from all the bombs. People are still getting sick. We saw that many families were torn apart because they lost a loved one in the war. Bombs that we didn't know what the effect of them would be were used. In the end we still won't know what the effects are, but there are cases that come up, that are very strange All these cases are examples of the immortality of war. War also results in destruction. Rebuilding cities can cost lots of money. Rebuilding also takes lots of time,

War is immoral for these reasons. There is just no excuse for torture, suffering, and death. Under any circumstance, a person should never ever kill another person.

In conclusion, people should not die because of conflicts between leaders of countries. Death is very traumatizing to a person. There is just no reason for someone to have to die, specially over issues that aren't even worth getting into, like the Gulf War. Iraq didn't gain anything by trying to take over Kuwait. No war has ever come out positively. [15, p200-203]