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War - Page 2

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. War settles nothing
-- Dwight David Eisenhower - 34th president of the United States, 1890-1969

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own
-- Aldous Huxley - English novelist and critic, 1894-1963

War

My point exactly but I lack the knowlage to put it into words. For ones that think we should protect the liberty of other by war: who chouse the people that are going to be save from the "oppressive gouverment"? Can you say for sure that Iraqi people were the only one needing help? And if they were not, what we should expect to happened next?

What if a powerful alien race ( for example ) would think that US gouverment is unfair for ( and this is an wild example again) the people with low income and start a fight agains it?

Message Edited! Persephone: No need to repeat the text above you.

War History & Civil Business Politics

All discussion of the Iraq war should be taken to the appropriate thread.

You are right about the fact that if we choose to support the cause of freedom and liberty, we must justify how and when we choose to act. At the same time, I think it is vital for a free people to support anything possible to increase the liberty in the world. We do that in a variety of ways, including the funding of organizations that are seeking liberty, through propaganda, through education, and, sometimes, through military action.

Obviously, the decision to invade, or take war to a particular place is very complex. While I think that the cause of liberty is paramount, in order to justify creating war (from a moral standpoint) a country or government must take a lot of other things into consideration. I think it is apparent from all the discussion within the US (and without) that there are a lot of other reasons involved in this particular case.

To address your example, such a powerful alien race would have to be pretty blind and stupid. First of all, the people in the US with low incomes are better off than something like 90% of ALL the rest of the people in the world. The standard of living that the poorest of the poor within the US enjoy is far above 99.9999% of all humans in the history of the world.

Secondly, such an alien race would have to decide somehow that the US was more oppressive than all the rest of the world. Do these things sound like reasonable causes? If so, then there isn't much we can discuss here.

Now an alien race might decide to bring war against the US because it wanted to destroy the technological foundation of the world, or that it wanted to rape the US of its resources. But there is no possible moral cause to pick the US over much of the rest of the world. Well, I take that back. If an alien race saw abortion as being a huge moral cause, then not only the US, but Canada, Australia, and all of Europe would be in big trouble. The Muslim world would be in great shape.

As I have said before, I really see only two reasons to justify war. 1) Self-defense, which includes grave threats to national security, as well as threats or actions against allies. 2) Supporting the cause of liberty, that is to eliminate oppression. I would only say that the 2nd reason really only supports the 1st reason, as it doesn't really justify going to war, but rather can help how the war is prosecuted.

Page 2 War

"We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing. With just a little witty skepticism we can kill a good deal of the future in a young person. Life is waiting everywhere, the future is flowering everywhere, but we only see a small part of it and step on much of it with our feet."
-- Hermann Hesse, German poet and novelist.

War

"War paralyzes your courage and deadens the spirit of true manhood. It degrades and stupefies with the sense that you are not responsible, that 'tis not yours to think and reason why, but to do and die,' like the hundred thousand others doomed like yourself. War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder."
-- Alexander Berkman

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"COWARDICE, n. A charge often levelled by all-American types against those who stand up for their beliefs by refusing to fight in wars they find unconscionable, and who willingly go to prison or into exile in order to avoid violating their own consciences. These 'cowards' are to be contrasted with red-blooded, 'patriotic' youths who literally bend over, grab their ankles, submit to the government, fight in wars they do not understand (or disapprove of), and blindly obey orders to maim and to kill simply because they are ordered to do so-all to the howling approval of the all-American mob. This type of behavior is commonly termed 'courageous.'" : Chaz Bufe

War

Well, News, those are interesting quotes, but I am not familiar with either of the people quoted. What makes them such experts on the philosophy, culture, politics, and realities of war, that they can be used as examples of how men become when they fight war? What exact war did they participate in?

How about some quotes by successful, or even not-so-successful philosophers (etc) on the people who have to do the fighting? It sounds to me like these two guys are able to sit in ivory towers making up wonderful words, while other people are out there fighting and dieing for them to protect their rights.

As a former warrior, one who was willing to place my life on the line, I am very offended by such statements. I have NEVER looked down on someone who was a true conscientious objector. I have nothing but respect for those who so objected to war that they refused to fight, but volunteered to become medics, going on to the battlefield unarmed in order to help those who did fight.

And I also have nothing but respect for those who are so set in their beliefs and convictions that they are willing to face arrest and possible prison for expressing those beliefs.

The ones that I disrespect are the ones who fled to foreign countries to live in luxury while they continued to spew hatred and bile at those who did fight. I disrespect the masses of "war protestors" who protest against the actions of their own country, yet support (through words, signs, writings, speeches, etc) the horrific actions of tyrants and dictators. At EVERY war protest of which I have read over the last two years, there have been activists protesting the actions of the United States, while praising Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, and the mullahs in Iran.

There is a huge difference between someone who thinks all war, including internal war against liberty, is immoral, and those who support socialists, communists, and simple despots against the United States and other western powers.

War - Page 2

Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, "War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away."
-- Immanuel Kant

War Politics Business Civil & History - Page 2

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly and wickedness of the government may engage itself?

"Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest right of personal liberty? Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? . . .

"A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men."
-- Daniel Webster, Speech in the House of Representatives, January 14, 1814