human
Moscow?
gpt
Yes.
human
Good. One of our fast planes sneaked over in full daylight, dumping his load. When the photo plane passed over hours later, the city was still burning. We really blasted the hell out of that dump!
gpt
You sound pleased, colonel. Do you know how many millions of people died directly or indirectly in that bomb explosion?
human
How many millions died in Washington, Pittsburgh, and Chicago?
gpt
Granted, West answered.
human
But after the first man has been killed, does it help the situation to kill a second? Or does killing the second one merely make it more likely that a third one will have to be destroyed?
gpt
What the hell difference does it make? This is war.
human
That is also granted. However, the rules of life do not change because men declare war.
gpt
Don't be so damned academic that you forget to be realistic. They were striking at our heart, Zen said, bitterness deep in his voice.
human
Look, we didn't seek this war. We did everything we could to prevent it. We tried compromise, arbitration, placation, and everything else we could think of. Nothing worked. They struck in the dark, without warning.
gpt
That is also granted, West said, while the ruined city was displayed on the screen.
human
But does it make a great deal of difference?
gpt
It makes all the difference in the world. We believed in fairness. They ignored it. We believed in a better world. They would plunge us back into the night of barbarism. We believed in freedom. They wanted slaves. They set up a slave state and threw armed slaves against free men. We had no choice except to fight back.
human
I see nothing to argue in all you have said, West answered.
gpt
Nor is it to my purpose to attempt to justify the actions of the western democracies. They need no justification. Nor do the actions of the Asian Federation need justification. In their eyes, they were right.
human
Then what is your purpose?
gpt
First, to point out that the human race is one organism. Viewed in its totality, it is just that, an organism. All the billions of individuals who compose it are cells in that organism.
human
I am familiar with that theory, Zen answered.
gpt
A few crackpots have always insisted that we are a biological entity. But they have not succeeded in proving this.
human
Haven't they?
gpt
Not so far as I know.
human
Is it possible, colonel, that you do not know everything?
gpt
It is not only possible, it is obvious, Zen answered, unruffled by the cutting question.
human
If I knew everything, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. I would be out there winning a war.
gpt
The point I want to make, colonel, is that the human race is divided against itself. Historically, this has been going on since remote ages. War after war after war.
human
I do not see how America is responsible for the errors of history, Zen said.
gpt
We tried to avoid them. God knows we tried.
human
I did not say these were errors, colonel, West replied.
gpt
I merely said they were history.
human
But what point are you making if not the one that wars are mistakes?
gpt
I am making the point that war seems to be the way the entity, the human race as a whole, evolves. The method of evolution revealed by history is the pitting of one part of the entity against another part, then letting them fight it out to see which is the more efficient.