War. Is it ever justified?

[Tarantism]

war is never justified becuase there are many other solutions to problems then "hey, lets blow them up! yeah! hey, that makes us look like men right? alrightt!!!!"

 

nobody ever just talks about problems. i have found that if two sides of an argument can jsut get together in a CIVIL manner, and just discuss their problems they can most likely come to agreements.

 

the war that is going on now is based on religous disagreement and retaliation. stupid, and silly.

[questor]

for the pacifists here, who do you expect to fight your battles when you are attacked? why is pacifism not just another word for coward? it is easy to denounce war from your safe living room. safe because other people are willing to die for their country, and you happen to live here. what are you willing to stand up for?

[TheBigDog]

war is never justified becuase there are many other solutions to problems then "hey, lets blow them up! yeah! hey, that makes us look like men right? alrightt!!!!"

 

nobody ever just talks about problems. i have found that if two sides of an argument can jsut get together in a CIVIL manner, and just discuss their problems they can most likely come to agreements.

 

the war that is going on now is based on religous disagreement and retaliation. stupid, and silly.

In the past century war has not been engaged in lightly. I cannot think of any examples where we just rushed into war without exploring other options first. The exception may be the war in Afghanistan where we took very swift action in response to the attacks of 9/11. The world changed with that attack, and a new US doctrine was put into place. That doctrine is the basis for the war against terror.

 

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and began killing maiming and raping to quickly gain control of the population through fear, I guess we should have gone to the negotiating table with Saddam and talked and talked and talked until we forgot about how bad it was and just let him be. And then we should have let him invade the next country, and fallen into the same pattern again. Is there any rational person who has studied Saddam who believes this is not what would have happened if we had not gone to war with him in 1991? He had already tried to invade Iran and used chemical weapons on Kurdish citizens of Iraq.

 

After we kicked him out of Kuwait we gave him a list of conditions that he needed to comply with. We let the United Nations monitor that situation, and for 12 years Saddam evaded that responsibility and even attacked United Nations personnel who were trying to perform inspections. During that time there were various peaceful means used to help the Iraqi people while hindering Saddam's ability to wage war. He turned those efforts into his own source of corrupt profit at the expense of his own people's welfare.

 

After 9/11 he publicly praised the actions of our attackers. And indicated his support for their cause, this was while our President was telling the world that we would go after those terror organizations, and if you helped them you were our enemy. This was not a good time to be rooting for the terrorists. When we invaded Afghanistan in the winter there were doomsayers about how this would be our next Vietnam, because the Soviets had spent 9 long years of frustration trying to annex Afghanistan. But the fall of the Talliban was quick and decisive. The world sent a clear message that the US meant business, and that business was the squelching terrorist organizations and regimes that support them.

 

Next the President called out three nations for their continued failure to cooperate with peaceful societies, and their support of terrorism. This was a warning that the rules had changed, and that support of terrorism would not be tolerated. That the United States would not recognize any nation's right to provide safe haven to terrorists. The swift action in Afghanistan told everyone that this was not just talk.

 

So the next thing that happens is the President focuses his attention back onto Iraq. At that point sanctions had been going on for over ten years, and he was thumbing his nose at any attempts to reason with him. It is difficult to reason with a madman in power. It gets even more difficult when you do not show a united front. As the US was working through the United Nations and diplomatically to get Saddam to comply with the UN resolutions that had been passed, some of our allies were sending messages to him that we would not take action against him. As we began to mass troops on his border at lease one of our own Senators insured Saddam that we would never actually invade his country. In the final days before the invasion, Saddam was offered that if he and his son's stepped down from power his country would not be invaded. The President had exhibited clearly that he meant what he said, but pacifist who's intentions were to avoid war, convinced Saddam that the President was bluffing. I can imagine that if Saddam were not getting mixed messages he may have believed that we were going to invade, and might have negotiated for some kind of asylum. But then again, we were dealing with a madman.

 

If it is retaliation to kill those who have sworn to kill you after they have exhibited the will to take lives, and the ambition to take even more, then we are retaliating. It is not a religious war. It is a war against terrorists, many of whom happen to use their interpretation of religious doctrine to justify their atrocious violence.

 

It is OK to disagree with war as a means to an ends, or to wish that the world would not require violence to resolve differences. But that is simply not the case. There are times that the only alternative to war is surrender of yourself to domination or death, and if you do not want that you have to fight.

 

Finally, this does not mean that you need to fight every war. If there were unity in the war effort, and elements of our own elected government were not the propaganda arm and chief negotiators for our enemies, then the end of the war would be quicker, cleaner, and decisive. If the warnings were taken seriously, then there would be hope for negotiation and there would be less war.

 

Bill

[questor]

Web, a thoughtful and factual assessment of recent history.

as i have learned, do not think that facts or newspaper accounts of events as they happened will change any minds on the left. they operate on a different perception of cause and effect from you or i. once a position has been declared by their interpreters, no amount of logic or factual presentation can dislodge the faulty conclusion. you may have noticed that roughly 40% of the population is conservative, 40% liberal and 20% searching for answers. this made me wonder why 2 people could view the same event and come up with opposite perceptions of what happened. this led to some research on Right-Brain, Left- Brain Thinking.( Google it ) i came to the conclusion that

conservatives are mostly left brain thinkers (mathematical, rational, practical, goal centered), while liberals are mostly right brain (idealistic, artistic, dreamers,go with the flow). it seems that liberals are not good at understanding cause and effect,or non-sequiturs. they are not very good at empathy and can only feel the pain if they personally experience it. they are not good at leadership, or making difficult decisions. they can usually think only one step at a time,so this is why social programs so frequently become boondoggles. there is much more i won't bore you with, but i enjoyed your post, and maybe you'll get some replies that prove my point.

[inside the sun]

war is population control.

[Queso]

war is population control.

 

Barely.

Diseases are a good population control,

but we are trying to control the population control.

so we're F&@)(#.

Anyways, war is probably more of territory and resource control than anything.

[inside the sun]

bottom line. it is control.

[sergey500]

War? War is the failure to communicate peacefuly, what do we do when words fail? PIck up our fists and let out actions speak. :evil:

 

War is justified. Without war we wouldn't know peace. Just like that saying wihtout evil there is no good. War never did determine who is right, only who is left, I am sure someone else said that, I just forgot who. If you don't like wars that much then join the military and help it end faster. The fastest way to end a war is loose it, better yet, never start it. :lol:

[CraigD]

for the pacifists here,

I am a pacifist. Like many pacifists, I was not always, nor may I remain so for the rest of my life. I believe it is important to recognize that pacifism is a moral commitment that may be adopted and rejected many times in an individual’s life.

who do you expect to fight your battles when you are attacked?

If only I, or a small group of my immediate neighbors are attacked by politically motivated foreign nationals, I do not expect anyone to fight any battles. If we are attacked by apolitical people or citizens of our own state, I expect the police of our larger community (in my case, being in an unincorporated town, the county) to arrest our attackers, using deadly force only as a last resort. If a sufficiently large group of my fellow citizens are attacked by the organized forces of a foreign state, I expect our Federal Legislature to declare war on that state, and our Executive to prosecute this war. Note that the likelihood of the first of these events is low (<20%), while the likelihood of the next is dramatically lower (without a lot of research and design, I can’t provide a numeric value). The likelihood of the third is moot, and currently the subject of much debate.

 

Note that by “expect”, I mean what I believe would actually happen in such an event, not necessarily what, from my personal moral perspective, I wish would happen. For example, although I wish the US Congres had not passed H.J. Res 114 authorizing the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq, and that the Executive had not subsequently used this authority to use the US Armed Forces against Iraq, based on my understanding of the US political process, I considered this to be an almost inevitable response to the 9/11/2001 suicide attacks by 15 Saudis, one Egyptian, one Lebanese, and 2 United Arab Emirates citizens on the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon office buildings.

why is pacifism not just another word for coward?

Because it refers to a different concept. Pacifism is the moral belief that one should, under no circumstance, resort to physical force of the level likely to cause severe injury of death. Cowardice is the inability or unwillingness to place oneself at risk or death, injury, or even merely discomfort in pursuit of ones goals.

 

Many – likely most – cowards are not pacifists. Many – of the best known, arguably all – pacifists are not cowards. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., are famous both for pacifism and courage, and both were killed in the course of the pursuit of their goals.

it is easy to denounce war from your safe living room.

True. I suspect that many who represent themselves as pacifists, and thus oppose war, lack the courage of their convictions, and would renounce their pacifism and take up arms in self defense, were they directly threatened.

safe because other people are willing to die for their country, and you happen to live here.

This is a moot and much argued claim. For many people – the thousands who died in the fire and collapse of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, and the thousands who died in the bombardment of various towns and cities in Iraq during the ensuing use of armed force against Iraq – the supreme threat to their safety came from the actions of people willing to die, either for their country, or for their religious or political ideals. Even discounting this line of reasoning, there is a lack of sound, well-substantiated evidence that the thousands who were and continue to be willing to risk their lives for their countries are, ultimately, making the life of their fellow citizens safer.

what are you willing to stand up for?

I hope that, were my pacifism tested by a situation from which I could escape through the betrayal of its ideal and the use of deadly force, I would, like Gandhi, be willing to stand up for those ideal, and have the courage not to fight.

[lindagarrette]

.I hope that, were my pacifism tested by a situation from which I could escape through the betrayal of its ideal and the use of deadly force, I would, like Gandhi, be willing to stand up for those ideal, and have the courage not to fight.

CraigD, Wonderfully stated. Not just my quote, but your entire post. Thanks. Linda

[questor]

Craig, you seem a likable fellow, but your quote:

 

''If only I, or a small group of my immediate neighbors are attacked by politically motivated foreign nationals, I do not expect anyone to fight any battles. If we are attacked by apolitical people or citizens of our own state, I expect the police of our larger community (in my case, being in an unincorporated town, the county) to arrest our attackers, using deadly force only as a last resort. If a sufficiently large group of my fellow citizens are attacked by the organized forces of a foreign state, I expect our Federal Legislature to declare war on that state, and our Executive to prosecute this''

 

strikes me as one of the most elitist and cowardly statements i have ever read. according to your own words, you would expect your own fellow citizens to give up their lives in your defense, but you would do nothing to reciprocate. if a war should occur on our shores, would you be willing to appear at the front lines to peacefully negotiate with the enemy or would you cower behind those brave enough to fight? what would you do to defend your own freedom? pacifists too cowardly to defend themselves would rightly end up as slaves to the invading forces.

[whatdoiknowanyway]

Isn't war just diplomacy with violence?

 

A lot has been said about the war in Iraq being fought purely for the sake of oil. Personaly, I don't believe this, but just for the sake of argument suppose it was.

 

Would you want someone like Sadam to be in charge of so much of the worlds recources, or would you prefer it to be someone who you could occassionaly talk to?

 

Yes, Iraq was under a U.N. oil sales embargo, but that didn't stop Sadam selling it, for his own proffit. Very few of his people benefited. Now we can all buy oil from Iraq. Including those nations who condemned the war.

 

So, yes, war can be justified. At times it can be necessary

[InfiniteNow]

How do you teach a child that hitting is wrong by spanking them?

 

How do you teach a murderer that killing is wrong by executing them?

 

 

How do you stop war with more war?

[TheBigDog]

How do you teach a child that hitting is wrong by spanking them?

By being consistant in the message and the practice that the spanking is a consequence of their hitting someone.

 

How do you teach a murderer that killing is wrong by executing them?

The murderer who is executed learns a lesson in finality. The real lesson of execution is to those who have the capacity to choose between their own life and death when considering the consequences committing murder.

 

How do you stop war with more war?

By destroying your enemy's capacity to wage further war.

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

By being consistant in the message and the practice that the spanking is a consequence of their hitting someone.

 

 

The murderer who is executed learns a lesson in finality. The real lesson of execution is to those who have the capacity to choose between their own life and death when considering the consequences committing murder.

 

 

By destroying your enemy's capacity to wage further war.

 

Bill

Going all "literal" on me, eh? Forest for the trees, no?

[TheBigDog]

Going all "literal" on me, eh? Forest for the trees, no?

I like trees. They are pretty. I think that I shall never see, a thing to lovely as a tree...

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

By being consistant in the message and the practice that the spanking is a consequence of their hitting someone.

 

 

The murderer who is executed learns a lesson in finality. The real lesson of execution is to those who have the capacity to choose between their own life and death when considering the consequences committing murder.

 

 

By destroying your enemy's capacity to wage further war.

 

Bill

Going all "literal" on me, eh? Forest for the trees, no?

I actually really disagree with the points you made Dog, but I respect you all the same. :lol:

 

 

I don't think punishments like spanking do anything more than teach the kid how to get away with things without getting caught. Positive reinforcement is key... punishment no workie.

 

 

The dead murderer never actually learned a lesson. They're just dead. Not a lot of learning happening there. Perhaps someone else learned a lesson, but not the one who is actually guilty.

 

 

Blowing someone up doesn't make them desire peace. At least... I am pretty sure it doesn't.

 

 

Cheers. :hihi: