How Do We Justify War To Our Children?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

How Do We Justify War To Our Children? -> posted with permission from http://sane-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-do-we-justify-war-to-our-children.html

So many people have been killed, injured or orphaned in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it continues. An explosion, gunfire or a beheading are part of daily life since the U.S. invaded and occupied these nations. Why are these wars being fought? If my 9 year old grandchild asks me, or your children ask you, what do we say?

That might makes right? If that's so, then the drug cartels must be in the right and so must America's gangs, as they often settle their differences in blood.

If we can't justify these wars, why do we allow them to continue? Yes, President Bush started them but President Obama continues them and Congress, Democrats and Republicans, has been a rubber stamp, while collecting campaign contributions from the war profiteers.

If your children or our grandchildren ask what we have done to stop the wars, how would we answer them? What example have we set for them?

The U.S. military, with the cooperation of most American media, censors these wars so we don't have to see the blood or hear the victims cry out to us. But you and I know it's happening and as people of conscience, how can we ignore it?

How can we not raise our voices, take to the streets or even hold accountable those politicians who authorize murder in our names?

What would we tell a 6 year old Afghan child whose parents were just killed by a U.S. drone missile? What do we say to a 6 year old Iraqi child who just had a leg blown off? How do we explain to a 6 year old American child why his or her parent serving us in the military just came home in a casket? A casket incidentally not shown to us, for it too is censored.

As we allow these things to happen, how will history judge us? Will we appear to be like the German citizens of the 1930's and 40's who remained silent?

President Obama called Darfur's genocide a "stain on our souls." But what burden do the American wars place on our souls? Aren't we all responsible for the horrors our nation is committing? Isn't the obligation to stop it ours? Our voices have power and we can make a difference for the families in Iraq, Afghanistan, U.S. military families and families throughout the world. We must have the courage to use our voices now.

[county worker]

1. If we could begin taking all the materials and troops home tomorrow from Iraq and Afghanistan

would you favor it no matter what the consequences?

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

14. I can't speak for the author, but I believe I would favor it. nt

[HopeHoops]

2. I think the simple answer is, "you don't".

If there is no justification, you can't fabricate one - at least not in good faith. Even young children can accept that something is happening that you, the adult, do not agree with. Answer them honestly.

[RKP5637]

3. You probably begin by explaining the stupidity, immaturity and ignorance of the human race as a

foundation and build on that IMO.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. I don't justify unjust wars.

My kids seem to understand that concept, and that there is a hazy line between the just and the unjust, and that there is the possibility that all wars are unjust.

In broad strokes:

American Revolution: just war.
Civil War: unjust war waged by the confederacy, just war waged by the union.
WWI: massively unjust war by all concerned.
WWII: genocide made it a just war, otherwise a repeat of WWI.
Korea: clusterfuck, probably marginally just.
Vietnam: grossly unjust war waged by France, Japan, France again, and America against the people of Vietnam.
Gulf Farce I: bogus altercation, unjust war, part of the build up for WW-III.
Afghanistan: seemed just for a year or so, then obviously part of a larger and hideously unjust world war.
Gulf Farce II: aka Iraq - unjust war waged by world domination obsessed neocon faction of global corporate elites who cooked up a slow-coup of the US, allowed and or actively participated in a huge terror strike against the US to justify activating their third world war.

My kids seem to understand the bogosity of the current situation. How about yours?

[Recursion]

5. Why justify it?

They might as well learn early that justice rarely wins in this world.

[The_Commonist]

6. Justify war?

Why would you need to justify war?
If you think it's wrong, then tell your children or grandchildren that you think it's wrong.
No need to justify anything.
Just tell the truth.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

13. I believe the author wonders how we justify not actively working to..

end this tragedy.

Where is the collective outrage? Where are the protests? Where are the anti-war candidates? Where is the just media?

[ixion]

7. my mother didn't try and justify it, nor rationalize it

she was against it. There was a period when I was in high school when I thought she was wrong, but that was very brief. Overall, I've been against war, in both practice and theory, all my life.

[Echo In Light]

8. Explain to them, through time & circumstance, what Power is, and how it operates

Then they'll know how to identify evil shit that often gets accepted as being something else due to "necessary illusions" of empire.

[NotThisTime]

9. We don't justify it to them, we let them study history and talk about it in context of today...

there is no excuse for what is going on now and I won't pretend that there is.

[gratuitous]

10. In the country whose national religion is the High Church of Redemptive Violence?

It's an Article of Faith. Violence will overcome violence. Bullets are for the strong. Negotiation is for the weak. Diplomacy is the last refuge of the girly man. Bless us all, in the name of the Rifle, the Bomb and the Holy Fallout.

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

15. You make a sad but accurate statement.

Thank you for adding it to the discussion, gratuitous.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. Give them a flag, sing "God Bless America", and tell them about the Bogeymen.

It works for politicians and the Pentagon.

[Brickbat]

12. Having seen a couple threads on this today, I'm starting to feel like this question is the anti-war

version of this poster:

[No DUplicitous DUpe]

16. Kick!

For the late shift.