War is wrong.

[asdjrocky]

Innocent people die.

Children die.

Who agrees?

[babylonsister]

1. Duh.

:hi:

[AlphaZero]

2. Of course

Me.

[asdjrocky]

12. Welcome to DU.

[niyad]

20. welcome to DU

[Silent3]

3. True, but sometimes it's the lesser of two evils.

Not as often as war is waged, but sometimes.

While absolute pacifism has an alluring purity and seeming nobility, the world is too complicated for such a simplistic view.

[asdjrocky]

4. You don't think we could enjoy the America we have without killing people?

I'm not talking pacifism. I just mean don't wage war. Couldn't we be safe, wouldn't we be safer, if we didn't wage war?

[Silent3]

16. Certainly I don't think getting involved in Iraq really improved our safety.

The last war that seem to me a fairly clear win for improving the safety of the US was World War 2. Since we can't actually run experiments on history and see how things would have turned out differently if we had made different choices in the past, certainty is impossible, but it seems awfully likely that without US involvement Nazi Germany would have conquered Europe, and in a short time they would have become a nuclear power ahead of the US. It's hard to imagine that turning out well for this country or a lot of the rest of the world.

[leftstreet]

5. Occupation is Hell

K&R

[LostInAnomie]

6. Not always.

The Revolutionary War, The Civil War, WW2, and others fought by other countries seem pretty justified and acceptable. Some may even argue that they were moral.

[asdjrocky]

10. Yeah.

Every war you mentioned took place over 60 years ago. In my lifetime, not one justified war.

[LostInAnomie]

15. That doesn't mean there won't be.

And, it doesn't mean that there haven't been military actions that were morally justifiable. Our actions in Bosnia for example.

Sometimes violence is necessary.

[RumJungle]

31. Oh well history only counts in your lifetime, right?

[asdjrocky]

32. No, that's not what I said.

I just said that there has not been a good war in my lifetime.

So your coming down in the pro-war camp? You like war?

[FreeJoe]

35. Are you sure about that?

Compare and contrast North and South Korea. The UN sanctioned war in defense of South Korea seems pretty justified.

You don't think that removing the Taliban and the terrorist training camps from Afghanistan was even worth trying? It hasn't turned out as well as I'd like, but I think our military action there was justified.

If you could turn the clock back to 1994, would you not think that a UN lead force in Rwanda to stop the slaughter of 1,000,000 Africans might be a good idea?

What about the limited military engagement the US lead in Kosovo to stop the ethnic cleansing there? It did a lot of good for a fairly small cost in lives.

I was enraged by the invasion of Panama in 1989, but I can't argue that it converted a country from a dictatorship (that we effectively created) to a reasonably stable democracy. I would have preferred that we not have screwed it up in the first place, but given the reality of 1989, in hindsight, I think the invasion was a net good thing.

I think that the invasion of Somalia was done with good intentions. It's a great lesson that force often is not the answer, regardless of how well intentioned. I wish that something could be done to fix the problems of places like Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, but I don't know what would work. Military strikes would not.

I also believe that being ready for war is often the best way to maintain peace. On the downside, it often leads to a temptation to engage in war. There are no easy answers to life's biggest challenges.

[RedCappedBandit]

7. Yup.

[Rage for Order]

8. Sometimes.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. The argument is that war is sometimes necessary, not that war is right.

Not every nation, every regime, or every group have an enlightened view as you.

Most wars, however, are not necessary, and not fought for national or group survivial.

[asdjrocky]

11. When was the last time we fought a necessary war?

Not in my lifetime, and I'm nearly 50.

[Ozymanithrax]

18. We had no choice with WWII.

A hostile nation attacked us on our own soil. We could have said, sorry, war is wrong. I won't argue that the wars we have fought since then have been unnecessary and were fought for Imperial purposes.

But we are not the only people fighting wars. Many people are oppressed in their own countries and given no means of addressing their grievances. I am not pro-Palestinian, and I think a non-violent approach as pioneered by Ghandi would have been a better idea, but many there chose armed struggle and see no alternative. They have a right to self determination. Unless the world decides to force a settlement, that conflict will continue.

[niyad]

26. so what do you think about the theory that the US KNEW about the coming attack on Pearl Harbor

and essentially invited it as an excuse to get into the war?

[Ozymanithrax]

28. The theory has never been proved, however it still would be a necessary war...

If we knew the attack was coming, our only recourse would have been to launch our own carrier forces and initiate the war by attacking the Japanese Imperial fleet before they attacked us. Right up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, American Citizens opposed becoming involved in the wars in Asia and Europe. Tipping our hat to the Japanese and saying, we know what your are doing, would not have stopped that attack. That would also make it a "necessary war" as it would be to stop an attack by a foreign military meant to take the lives of American citizens, self defense.

The only possible way to have avoided the attack would have been to withdraw from all U.S. interests in the Pacific and to have told the Japanese to do what ever they wanted, and declared our neutrality. The U.S. had extensive trade interest in the Western Pacific. Japan chose to actively seek to conquer the entire Western Pacific and assert control over the region. They made the choice to commit to war, and what other nations did was irrelevant. It was accept the Japanese or resist them.

An argument that the war wasn't necessary could be made if you can show that FDR engaged in policies and acts to goad the Japanese into attacking us.

After WWII, the U.S. gave up its isolationist policies and embraced empire. The Breton Woods agreement formalized the creation of a U.S. Empire and since that time, all our wars have been Imperial wars that had nothing to do with actual defense of our homeland. We will continue to wage various imperial wars until the empire is dissolved.

You could even make an argument that nuclear armed nations no longer engage in necessary wars. Threatening the existence of a nuclear armed nation is pretty much suicide. If it comes down to continued existence, there is nothing to keep anyone from launching as many nuclear weapons as necessary stop that kind of aggression. Also, no foreign power or group of foreign powers could project force against us in the face of nuclear weapons. We would destroy them before they ever set foot here.

[AlphaZero]

17. True

Unfortunately human nature often takes over.

[G_j]

13. "War is not inevitable"

-Dennis Kucinich
(Gandhi, MLK etc..)


it's a choice..

[Ozymanithrax]

19. Only if we are willing to live with that choice...

The people in Iran are fighting right now. Some of them have died in that struggle. As conflicts go, it is low level warfare, but should thy simply say violence is wrong and we will surrender to the indignities performed by our government?

[patrice]

14. War is In-Human.

[Ozymanithrax]

22. No, war is the most human of all endeavors, it is inhumane.

Parrots and dandelions do not make war. In all of nature, only primates make war. Perhaps it is a genetic disease inherited from our ancestors.

[patrice]

36. I guess that depends upon whether your branch on the Human Family tree tends more towards the Bonobo

or the Chimpanzee.

Not that it is proof of anything, but there is nothing I can think of that repulses me more than War and I have been like this ever since I can remember.

[niyad]

21. remember the bumper sticker "war is unhealthy for children and other living things."

[asdjrocky]

23. Yeah, I do.

My older sister had one on her 64 Rambler.

The best truths are so many times simple.

[bridgit]

24. Agreed

[phasma ex machina]

25. +1

[BeFree]

27. We could certainly live without it

Civilized society for 10,999 years and some of us still think war is an answer. You'd think we'd've learned by now it is the worst answer.

[Behind the Aegis]

29. Not always.

[Kablooie]

30. War is raw ... backwards.

[LWolf]

33. I do. nt

[Soylent Brice]

34. i do.