Is War Ever Justified and What are the Aternatives?

[Az]

I have a hard time believing Saddam would refuse aid. Not only does it improve Iraq, but refusing it would utterly destroy him in world opinion.

replace "refuse aid" with "use chemical weapons".

[GePap]

And if you read Sun tzu, for him killing in war is secondary, and in fact, usually the result of ones failure to win the "war" any other way.

If "history" is made in conflict, t is because that is what sells papers. Who would listen to a story about 400 years of no war? What action occurs in it? what tension? what suspense. 90% of man's time on earth is not written down, yet the most important achievement of modern man, agriculture, the one thing that made all those things you metionned, including Sun Tzu having the time to write a book, is not written down.

was agriculture the result of war and strife? How could it?

We were born in it, and it is in us.

One day, we'll grow out of it....assuming we don't kill ourselves off along the way, but until then, we ARE war. We invented the term, and we perfected its execution.

We are born in it? Hardly. as for it being in us: many thigns are within us, love, hate, cowardice, courage. None of those things lone make us human: all of them together do.

Man has the capacity for war, but man also has the capacity for peace. Yes, we hav found incredible new ways to desroy, but we have found equally incredible ways to build. What last is not war, war is destruction. The loss of the Great Library is a stain on hisotry, something notable only for its senselessness. Look at the Pyramids. they are the result of ambition and pride, faith and arrogance, but not war. They have lasted 4500 years and see wars come and go, and they will probaly remain there for 4500 years more.

Man is verything within him, the good and the bad and the good and the evil, the ehtical and unethicl, and the majority of utterly amoral stuff in between. that is man. To pigeon holes us into war is just as deluded and absurd as how you view pacifists.

[Velociryx]

You just made my piont for me.

Yes....I have read Sun Tzu, and killing is secondary.

But then...killing is not war, is it? Again....the question is....is war justified?

The question is not "is peace, love, and poetry justified" and so I choose not to bring them into the discussion, since that's not what the question at hand is about.

One sided? Yes.

As is the question asked.

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

The question is not one sided, it is vague. There;s a difference.

Obviosuly, it was aksed in the context of Iraq, and I think my firt post was the best answer yet to it

[Velociryx]

The question is both. It's not a question about peace and love AND war....it's a question about war alone, and whether it's justifiable. The singular nature and topic of the question posed makes it....well...one-sided.



-=Vel=-

[Az]

Yes....I have read Sun Tzu, and killing is secondary.

But then...killing is not war, is it? Again....the question is....is war justified?

nice maneuver

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by spiritof1202


He has been "accepting" aid and reselling it for 11 years now, Osweld. We have 11 years of history for your plan.

Those 11 years have been SANCTIONS I clearly said that is not what should be done, and that the oil for food scheme is nothing at all like what I am proposing, and also something that should not be done.

[General Ludd]

Do all these semantics matter? Talking about whether war is justified, is it ethical, blah blah... means nothing. War is war. Your time would be better spent talking about it's causes and effects then spliting hairs about it's meaning.

[Az]

actually, for me, effects of war, just like of anything else, are the things by which I measure the ethical value of an act, so it doesn't contradict itself.

[Velociryx]

Thanks man!

-=Vel=-

[GePap]

A nice evassive manuever, yes..

[Velociryx]

Ahhh, but so very true....

-=Vel=-

[Ben Kenobi]

Pretty shallow points, except for BC's.

Mostly might makes right.

First off, there are several ethical concerns inherent in war. The first are the justifications, the cause for war, and the second are how to best go about war in order to cause the least amount of damage.

For me, the biggest concern with war is that war kills people, modern war will always result in the deaths of innocent people.

Stemming from this point, we can get two very opposite doctrines, the first, that war is never justified, and the second, that war is justified in certain cases, such as mass genocide resulting in the deaths of thousands of people.

Both of these are positions espoused by Christians, and both have long traditions behind them.

As a Mennonite, I'll argue for the first point, that war is never justified, and let one of the Catholics on the board argue a just war theory, describing the circumstances in which war is justified.

Do note that both theories do not try to balance human life with any other concerns, only human life can ever be balanced with human life.

BC made an excellent point in saying that there is always another option to war. The problem is not that the option does not exist, but the cost of the option, the cost of maintaining the peace. We tend to get wars when the cost of maintaining peace grows to a point perceived by one side or the other as too expensive.

Velociryx is also right that the world is not quite ready to do without war. This is a significant observation, because this indicates that he knows of a higher standard, that the world is not as it should.

What is this higher standard? One of peace. Peace is very costly, look at what Christ said, in the sermon on the mount, that rather than retaliating, we should turn the other cheek. It is not that the standard is wrong, but that the world cannot live up to the standard.

There are two responses to this position, the first, that we must go with the rules of the world, in greek the kosmos, the second that we should try to live according to the standard.

This is the beauty of pacifism, is that once everybody buys into the game, the system should support itself.
The devil though, is in the cost borne by those who start first.

Secondly, what has war ever accomplished, that peace could not?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Mostly might makes right.

How is the truth shallow?

[Ben Kenobi]

Define 'right' Imran.