Killing is murder. We treat war differently partly because

[snot]

it's so much harder to investigate/prosecute murder when it's happening on a mass scale.

Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. . . . All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

– Hermann Goering, per Nuremberg Diary (Farrar, Straus & Co 1947), by Gustave Gilbert

[aikoaiko]

1. Killing is not always murder.

[delrem]

3. Esp. if my side are the killers.

In that case, it's more like a "mowing", or a "winnowing", or a "harvesting". Right?

[aikoaiko]

7. Or self-defense.

[Rex]

2. War is indiscriminate mass killing.

Oh sure, the planning stage it murder, but when it comes to countries slaughtering each other it seems pretty equal. The bigger the war the more collateral damage to be expected. Which we get accustomed to.

[delrem]

4. I don't get accustomed to mass scale murder, or slaughter.

I guess I weaned on different stuff.

[Rex]

13. So you were out in the streets protesting in 2003? nt

nt

[delrem]

14. Yes. The largest mass protests in human history happened in '03

Don't you remember?

[Rex]

15. Why would you ask me if I remembered when I asked you the question?

So you were out in the street protesting then?

[delrem]

16. Look, I'm not *accustomed* to what you seem to be *accustomed* to.

That's no reason to hang me.

eta: I didn't ask you a fucking thing.

[Rex]

18. Okay so that is a no then.

Thanks that is what I thought, you are just a docile as everyone else thanks to the M$M. Like you are special in anyway shape or form from the rest of us.

[delrem]

19. OK, then fucking well hang me.

I'm about done, anyway.

[Journeyman]

5. So many literate takes on this topic, from Augustine to Aquinas . . .

Locke and Mill to Niebuhr and Arendt, von Clausewitz to van Creveld, and yet, you quote from a psychiatrist's conversations with a strung out junkie, a degenerate who was himself being investigated and prosecuted and would be found guilty and sentenced to death for all four counts of the indictment at Nuremburg. Kind of puts a kink in your contention about the difficulty of prosecution, wouldn't you agree?

[snot]

6. I don't care where truth comes from.

If you dispute the truth of it, we're waiting.

[delrem]

20. DU is a weird place, that's for sure.

It's a place where the denial of reality reigns supreme, and cheap snark replaces it.
And where the denial is in so deep. So deep.

It's a place where, increasingly, I can't tell the difference between a "neocon", a "liberal interventionist", and a Democratic candidate for President of the USA, and where a total mind-wipe of the past makes it impossible to discuss the matter. To say nothing of DU's TOS.

A place where stupid self-inflicted mind-wipes go from total excitement over the US "operation" in Libya to even more heightened excitement over the US "operation" in Syria (and who are mostly too numb to even record US "operations" elsewhere), and who are now blaming George W. Bush for ISIS. These same mind-wipes claim that the Republicans did it all. Not one of them have a different idea.

So I'm harsh in my language. That's because a lot of killing is going on and it could be different.

[KG]

8. pretty much sums up the run up to the wars in afghanistan and iraq....

[madokie]

9. War is an admission of failure

a failure to reconcile differences in a humane way. Its those of us who are thrust into war that suffers. Once in war it never goes away, its always with you

[avebury]

12. Well said!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless,

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy? Gandhi

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Albert Einstein

[MillennialDem]

17. War proves one thing: might does indeed make right and one must resign him or herself to that

It's messy, it's awful, but in a way I'm glad it's there - because the good side of it is that no dictator can truly be a dictator: He can always be removed with assassination if need be. Or at very least he must always fear the possibility and put the brakes on.

I'm actually glad that humans can sometimes resolve our differences WITHOUT war. For all the evils we have inflicted on each other, it is amazing that we can. I have two cats and while they have not killed each other, the only way they reoncile any difference is fighting and threatening to fight each other. They never cooperate.

[Amonester]

21. How wars started

skip at 3m31s

?t=3m31s