I don't think the colour of one's skin nor ones race (a strange concept in my view because I think we are all mongrels - find me a true pure bred dog or almost any animal - due to migrations, colonisations and resultant interbreeding) is the cause of wars.  But to get people (soldiers) to kill other human beings (an ugly business) a very important concept is to dehumanise the enemy.

After the US army (including black soldies) finished off the American Indians they went off to fight the Filopino Niggers (Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States), Iraquis were sand monkeys and ragheads, Johnson referred to the Vietnamese as little yellow dwarfs, in the first Iraq war Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies out of incubators on to the floor according to a contrived lie told by a sobbing young girl witness (who turned out to be a member of the Kuwaiti royal family) etc.

Wars are more about having or controlling what another people have and ensuring a collaborative regime.

Sometimes it's difficult to know what a war is for (he says tongue in cheek).  The second Iraq war was meant to destroy Iraq's WMDs we were told.  After they were not found and Bush joked around with the US press (and a stenographic press is convenient to have) about trying to find WMDs we were told it was to get rid of Hussein and bring democracy.  In fact just the other day a BBC on-line article stated the purpose of the war was to topple Hussein 'forgetting' that the purpose was to get rid of WMD.

And of course centuries of European wars were between whites.

By JEAN BRICMONT

The whole gang is back: The parties of the European Left (grouping the  "moderate" European communist parties), the “Green” José Bové, now allied with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who has never seen a US-NATO war he didn’t like, various Trotkyist groups and of course Bernard-Henry Lévy and Bernard Kouchner, all calling for some sort of "humanitarian intervention" in Libya or accusing the Latin American left, whose positions  are far more sensible, of acting as “useful idiots” for the "Libyan tyrant."

Twelve years later, it is Kosovo all over again. Hundred of thousands of Iraqis dead, NATO stranded in an impossible position in Afghanistan, and they have learned nothing! The Kosovo war was made to stop a nonexistent genocide, the Afghan war to protect women (go and check their situation now), and the Iraq war to protect the Kurds. When will they understand that all wars claim to have humanitarian justifications? Even Hitler was “protecting minorities” in Czechoslovakia and Poland.

http://www.counterpunch.org/bricmont03082011.html

Clowns on the left and fools on the right and victims stuck in the middle!

Leo:

Some wars can be based on race, but not all wars are. Take the US civil war: that was whites on whites over idealology and daily life. Take the US Colonies vs England: that was whites on whites over liberty. Take the current dispute between India and Pakistan - that's over land and not over skin color. 

Nir

i think you will find that religeon has been the cause of more wars and deaths than any other cause.

Then politics and greed are the next causes...

That's a commonly held perception or misperception frequently used today by many to discredit religions e.g. Dawkins, Chris Hitchens and Sam Harris.

Organised religion such as the Catholic church may have played  an ancillary role in suppporting certain sides that would advance their interests.  Were the wars in Ireland about religion or liberty?  Was Korea, Viet Nam, WWI and II, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Ethiopia-Somalia, Spanish-American, US Civil war and war of Independence, US wars against native indians, Peru-Bolivia etc about religion or about land and strategic resources?

In fact there have been so many wars and battles (many forgotten to most of us and historians) that it would be difficult to make a registry and study root causes, so my own feeling that it's about getting what someone else has is also just my gut feeling.

Mark

I re quote "politics and greed are the next causes"....

Ethnic cleansing is normally a side effect of greed... they have something I want so I will kick em out or kill em.....

Religeon, has been and still is, an excuse for starting a fight, the underlying is more often than not just greed. (land, resources, or just plain bloody mindedness)

And to answer your question re Ireland... the Irish fought for freedom, the British fought because of "want" (greed).... the war(s) in the middle East / Africa and previously European ones were fought for greed, and ethnic cleanising formed a part of all of those because its easier to take something when the owner doesnt exist any more.....every coin has two sides seen differently by each side.

I think religion has played and plays an important role in many wars and conflicts.  Not up-front but in the background.   A few examples come to my mind.

During WWI, the anglican bishop of London in a sermon published in 1915 claimed"¡Kill the Germans, kill them!", "not for the pleasure of killing but to save the world.......

Spanish Civil World.  Franco's troops were told by catholic  authorities that "killing a red" was an act of patriotism and that God was on their side.

In some countries in the Arab world, Friday prayer's at the Mosque led by an Iman are the ground for demonstrations and/or or political reivindications. 

Settlers in places like Kyriat Arbat (Hebron) behave agressively towards their Palestinian neighbours under the guidance of some Rabbi or other.

In the the bloody war that has ravaged Sri Lanka, hard-line Budisth were urging the president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to crush the Tamil Tigers with military force.

And how about Christian-zionism??????

I agree that economics and control of resources are the BIG driving factor in the powers that be initiating and continuing wars...but it seems to me that the easiest way to get the populace to support any action is to subtly play the race card...it is vital to make the enemy seem as different as 'us' as night is to day...race is the easiest one to play ...religion is a good one too...its no surprise that the arabs have become public enemy number one

i swore i would not enter a political discussion 

so here is to add that i agree that money plays a big role 

and i will not make any statements that will have the geneva branch on my neck just to say that it is not that simple that everyone hates arabs

but there is a problem amongst the middle eastern countries that has not been addressed

syria shoots down its own citizens, i recently read a horrific tale of torture and yet those countries have a lot to say about human rights where as they have the worst regimes in the world regarding human rights

so yes two wrongs definitely dont make a right however i dont really get how the leaders of those nations got the card of the victim whereas they have been torturing their own people and the neighbors and would go further were they not stopped

i too feel strongly against violence towards civilians however what do you do when faced with leaders that think nothing of violence and mass murder ?

There is no easy answer and when there is then i suspect something is wrong

Just to add to the equation, not only arabs but other nations are seen as the enemy of world  peace and are demonized 

why are certain people demonized?

my personal feeling is that yes, it is about money and greed

i dont think that Nazi Germany was motivated by poverty as many claim ,

but it was certainly motivated by greed and that is what motivates politics 

which is why i really should stay out of it but just wanted to add my two cents worth 

and i actually thought that the massive attack on my threads on this site demonstrated how there is a dire need to really have an open dialogue and put all the cards on the table and demand to know 

why are arab regimes getting away with murder and no one seems to care

and then if you say something you are called racist?certainly no one is blaming the civilians but one wonders why certain people keep putting up with dictatorships in silence

hopefully things are changing though, i would like to say here and now 

i am optimistic and positive that people are tired of wars, the problem is 

the people voted into government and doing the opposite of what they say

"i am optimistic and positive that people are tired of wars, the problem is 

the people voted into government and doing the opposite of what they say"

as long as wars do not involve drafts and call ups the general public could not really care less - a generalisation I know. Maybe a LOT of people do care but its finding an action which is effective and non-violent which is the problem

ironically the most vehement and passionate anti war people are the poor people that get sucked into the nonsense and come through it alive

to me there are only a few ways of stopping the 'war machine'

1 - somehow stop paying tax - its idealistic but if everyone dropped out the system would collapse  remember your tax is paying for these wars

2 - persuade those in the armed forces that there 'job' is essentially no better than a contract killer or at very least supporting killing

3 - get the ugly truth out there about war - soldiers are good at destroying things but no good at building things

4 - interacial sex...the more mixed race children out there the better the future will be

5 - let go of religion - if you are adult and believe in that nonsense in the 21st century...fundamentalism of all creeds is just really bad

6 - peaceful demos - effetively useléss imho

well to sum it up 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtS4ef0vqhU

However there are various interpretations on the matter..

as for the list you made

i am not sure how realistic not paying taxes is as much as i for one would love to follow that up, i am not really up to the consequences

get the ugly truth, denial works wonders

let go of religion, well, spirituality is something i think would be a shame to 

throw out , as it covers a big field of flowers for me 

peaceful demos, sure, 

interacial-am not sure what race really is , to dogs we are all the same

not to mention to butterflies..

perhaps adapt a different point of view, lets say , that of a butterfly of a bird

i dont think it is that simple but i see where you are going with that and yes

well wouldnt it be lovely?

"have an open dialogue and put all the cards on the table" We both agree on this.

So now tell me what do you think about the colonisation on the WestBank?