Post by silas on Sept 19, 2007 0:48:09 GMT -5
Can war be just?
When 300 Spartans died to ensure the only democracy on earth at the time the chance to rally its forces against the Persian invaders, was that just?
When America declared independence from England and fought to defend it, was that just?
When 600,000 men died to ensure that no American would ever enslave another, was that just?
Of course not. Every battle has two sides; only one of them can be justified. The real question is whether the side that starts it can be just, and I believe it probably can, in certain circumstances.
I believe that Saddam Hussein was the brutal dictator, and if even one of the stories of the atrocious acts that he committed is true, then both the world and Iraq are better off with him gone. If you agree with this then you can see how I might think that the war and Iraq was justified. I wish we could have just assassinated him, but if we had, one of his sons or generals would've taken his place.
Here's an analogy: You live in a place where there are no police. You have a neighbor who beats his wife and mistreats his kids. You can:
(A) Ignore it, and hope it goes away.
(B) Try to talk some sense into the guy.
(C) Kick the guy out and let the family take care of itself.
(D) Kick him out, but watch out for the family until they have someone else to take care of them.
We tried B and it didn’t work so we went with D. Of course there might be other options that I haven't considered, and of course there will be people who don't think this is a good analogy, but that's how I see the situation.
Yes, we could leave now, Saddam is gone. But if there's not a stable government in place when we leave, the whole thing will have been useless. If we started leaving tomorrow, American lives would be saved, but all those who died so far would have accomplished nothing.
I cannot say whether it is even possible to force democracy on the country as divided as Iraq, but if by some miracle we can bring peace, wouldn't it be worth the effort? Might not even be worth some lives?
On the question of whether Iraq is like Vietnam, I say it certainly isn't yet. For one thing, we are no longer fighting an army, just a sort of decentralized resistance. If memory serves, we overthrew Saddam Hussein's army within the first three weeks or so. In this one our soldiers have to worry about dehydration, rather than about malaria, or having their feet rot off. America was in the Vietnam War from 64 to 73, 9 Years, while we’ve been in this one since 2003, currently only 4 years. At the fourth year of the Vietnam War there had already been more than 35,000 US military deaths, compared to 3,700 so far in this one – only slightly more than a tenth as many. While there are no precise figures on Vietnamese civilians, estimates range from 900,000 to 4,000,000 – while Iraqi Health Minister Ali al-Shemari’s estimate is between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraq civilians. Of course, most of the Vietnamese civilians were killed in the genocide after the US withdrew their support.
On a side note, I think that Nixon gets a bad rap over Vietnam, after all, more than half the US casualties happened before his first day in the white house.
When 300 Spartans died to ensure the only democracy on earth at the time the chance to rally its forces against the Persian invaders, was that just?
When America declared independence from England and fought to defend it, was that just?
When 600,000 men died to ensure that no American would ever enslave another, was that just?
Of course not. Every battle has two sides; only one of them can be justified. The real question is whether the side that starts it can be just, and I believe it probably can, in certain circumstances.
I believe that Saddam Hussein was the brutal dictator, and if even one of the stories of the atrocious acts that he committed is true, then both the world and Iraq are better off with him gone. If you agree with this then you can see how I might think that the war and Iraq was justified. I wish we could have just assassinated him, but if we had, one of his sons or generals would've taken his place.
Here's an analogy: You live in a place where there are no police. You have a neighbor who beats his wife and mistreats his kids. You can:
(A) Ignore it, and hope it goes away.
(B) Try to talk some sense into the guy.
(C) Kick the guy out and let the family take care of itself.
(D) Kick him out, but watch out for the family until they have someone else to take care of them.
We tried B and it didn’t work so we went with D. Of course there might be other options that I haven't considered, and of course there will be people who don't think this is a good analogy, but that's how I see the situation.
Yes, we could leave now, Saddam is gone. But if there's not a stable government in place when we leave, the whole thing will have been useless. If we started leaving tomorrow, American lives would be saved, but all those who died so far would have accomplished nothing.
I cannot say whether it is even possible to force democracy on the country as divided as Iraq, but if by some miracle we can bring peace, wouldn't it be worth the effort? Might not even be worth some lives?
On the question of whether Iraq is like Vietnam, I say it certainly isn't yet. For one thing, we are no longer fighting an army, just a sort of decentralized resistance. If memory serves, we overthrew Saddam Hussein's army within the first three weeks or so. In this one our soldiers have to worry about dehydration, rather than about malaria, or having their feet rot off. America was in the Vietnam War from 64 to 73, 9 Years, while we’ve been in this one since 2003, currently only 4 years. At the fourth year of the Vietnam War there had already been more than 35,000 US military deaths, compared to 3,700 so far in this one – only slightly more than a tenth as many. While there are no precise figures on Vietnamese civilians, estimates range from 900,000 to 4,000,000 – while Iraqi Health Minister Ali al-Shemari’s estimate is between 100,000 and 150,000 Iraq civilians. Of course, most of the Vietnamese civilians were killed in the genocide after the US withdrew their support.
On a side note, I think that Nixon gets a bad rap over Vietnam, after all, more than half the US casualties happened before his first day in the white house.