Military Might

Military Might

I heard that term on the news the other day. It's been a while since that old saw has come up. I think they was describin' Vladimir Putin's agenda. When you think of military might, you automatically think of Alexander the Great or Genghis Kahn or Hannibal, Napoleon or even Adolph Hitler. It's a term that belongs to the past along with the names associated with it. Well let's face it. These guys are all dead as doornails an' where are their empires now? Joe Stalin for example spent his last two days on this earth in severe pain and alone because no doctor would come to see him and give him unwanted advice for fear of their own demise. Machnov, the South Russian anarchist who had robbed, pillaged and plundered Russia during the revolution ended up in a loony bin in the slums of Paris. And they dug up Richard III from under a parkin' lot in England.

So where's the benefit of all this military might? Its proponents have some cockamamie idea of their own importance in the grand scheme of the future of humanity (as they see it). It reminds me a lot of getting' really, really drunk an' then payin' for it with a giant hangover. If ya dig all these power brokers up from the underside o' the grass, you'll find nothin' more than a pile o' bones. By an' large, the same can be said for the empires they built. In fact, excavations these days uncover all sorts o' great civilizations, deep beneath sand or soil or jungles.

It begs the question; what in tarnation were we doin' spendin' all that energy buildin' these great empires an' civilizations anyways? Well there was a time when we needed better huntin' grounds or berry pickin' places or stuff to feed our people. Maybe we even wanted a warmer climate to live in. But all that's long past - dead an' buried - literally. Unless you want to wipe out a whole nation, their ain't no point. In fact, the nation bein' impacted is liable to take off an' migrate elsewhere an' then you got nothin' - witness Syria for example. Yer commands an' demands come back to you as an echo in an empty country so's yer only commandin' yerself as the sand blows in over yer civilization.

So what's the lesson to be learned from all this claptrap? I supposed it points out who the real big shot in our part o' the universe is. Mother Earth in her wisdom just keeps blowin' soil an' sand over our sorry carcasses an' the rain forest keeps growin' through an' over our great civilizations an' just buries us in our past. So there really ain't no use in all that military might in the first place. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.