This particular case very much upset me and drove me to study the subject for several months.

I wanted to know why people would do such a thing. After reading many books on the subject and more on psychology and sociology I came to the conclusion that it comes down to altruism.

In order to survive as a species we had to have altruistic behaviors like most other animals. This altruistic instinct causes use to do bad things for perceived "good causes" and also causes us to reject self seeking behaviors and sound judgment. It makes us almost thoughtlessly want to risk our lives to save a child from getting hit by a car.

Why do humans have an unhealthy obsession with wars and sacrifice?    It is because we are human.

There is no glory in death just the graveyard. war is not about conquest power Money love anything it's just because men love it lol

Blood lust

War is for suckers because the people doing the dying are never the ones reaping the rewards. Self sacrifice is what you should be willing to do for those your love and for the preservation of your core values but never for religion or nationalism.
If I must kill another living being I want it to have more meaning than just because they were wearing a different coloured uniform than I was.

Forgive my broken record but...

Evolution.

Don't get excited it's a way for the elate to control the masses then out the hurds!

I honestly think they enjoy killing and beating each other. have you seen what chimps do to strange chimps?

Wars are primarily class wars. Most people heard about the Geneva convention but seem to ignore their class cimenting nature. Amongst many peopl persists the illusion that wars are about national solidarity.

Our educational system has us sitting still and being lectured to all day, everyday, systematically preventing us from exploring our own experiences (no daydreaming). The things we are taught, the food we eat, the images we are exposed to are all part of the picture. When tracing history as far back as possible it becomes evident the masculine has dominated over the feminine (not necessarily men over women). Centuries of breeding men to be tough and domineering led to "slaves" rebelling. Men from more balanced cultures either assimilated to the European brand of masculinity or risked being deemed too feminine. Before we were even old enough to understand what we were doing or that we could make our own choices the programming had done it's damage. We must raise future generations to think for themselves, question everything and respect other life forms in order for the future to look any differently.

Propaganda. It's socially, politically and religiously peddled to give of ones self without care or thought for the good or the reality of any of it.

I think self sacrifice can be noble, if sometimes ill-advised. I'd take a bullet for my wife or children. Self-sacrifice is based on empathy which is enabled by the evolved / selected trait of possessing mirror neurons. If I want to spare someone else death or suffering then I might, under the right conditions, sacrifice my life for theirs.

Applying this to war however becomes rather dicey because soldiers are conditioned to do what they do without thinking, to blindly follow orders, and the self-sacrifice is all front-loaded in the oath they take when they become soldiers. And 99 (if not 100) times out of 100, war is avoidable, and is engaged in for various expedient socioeconomic and political motivations.

This "unhealthy obsession" is essentially tribal in nature. It is displacing one's problems onto the Hated Other. It is deliberately dehumanizing the enemy (indeed the very label "enemy" is itself dehumanizing).

So I would say that war gives self-sacrifice a bad name.

It helps to keep the population down, there by allowing us to procreate more. This is as good a reason as any ?

Self sacrifice is a noble act. It appears to be based on a genetic trait bred into us through natural selection. Survival of the tribe, if you will. The group that had more males willing to fight and die to protect their group was more successful in surviving competition with others.
As for warfare, I admit that for me personally, there has been nothing in my life to compare to the feelings of attacking "the enemy", and winning.
I'd guess that Conan The Barbarian answered correctly; "What is best?".....

I wonder if that's always the case, or is it mostly when and where business men see an angle?