WAR: UK and US Leaders Acted Like Nazi War Criminals

Originally posted by The Vagabond

What if my subjective morals were racist, misogynistic, sadistic, or otherwise centered on doing harm to others?

Then,sadly, you would not be alone in the world.

To make an emotional/moral argument in support of valuing morals is just an exercise in circular logic. I contend that a moral code must be logically supported to be relevant. Of what practical use is an unsupported and illogical claim?

Are we mathematitians first and foremost then? Does your epistemlogy hold no room for human motivations which diverge from solely utilitarian pursuits? And who is to decide which behavior serves whose definition of utility? You, I suppose?

I say that morality holds no logic for you because you have abandoned an essential aspect of the human condition - the never ending search for what it means to be human. It's truly a personal quest, and our adapting moral code(s) are an essential part of the evolution of the species. You preach stagnation of the species with your rejection of morality as illogical. Stagnation is illogical. Stagnation is death. How's that?

I define these words according to what can be valued.

Your premise is illogical. You begin by ruling that morality has no value because it is subjective by nature and yet you determine the merits of war based upon your own subjective concept of its value in material terms. I challenge you to place a value on war that is anything but subjective, even if you attempt to do it in dollars and cents. It cannot be done. Chaos theory will defeat you. War cannot be fought in a bubble or under glass. You are defeated. Now go sit in the corner.

At a certain point in the course of events, where wrong choices have brought us to a choice between two more wrongs, the lesser evil must be chosen, and it may at times be war.

War is always the 'most wrong' choice (particularly if you are the aggressor) because it represents a failure and abandonment of who and what you are, which is love. War is a statement that you are afraid. But there is nothing to fear. Fear not. Death will come in any event. Do you fear it so much that you must kill others first? Why? Does that please you? It is the soldiers and an apathetic citizenry (changing now on both counts) who make war possible. What if the warriors said 'no'? They have begun to ask themselves that question. Watch and see what they do next.

I pity Bush and wish no harm to him or his family. He is a failed president. He has failed at everything he has tried in life that I know of. It must really hurt. His willingness to order people to die without meaning does anger me but he is a crippled person himself. A true understanding of what is going on escapes him, in part because his handlers refuse to allow reality to enter his sphere. More stagnation. Nothing can grow in that environment. The neocon pond is a cesspool of stagnating confusion and hatred and we're all getting a taste of those waters. Would you like anything with that? Nachos perhaps?

Failing to fight the Nazi regime which made a great many choices which were materially disadvantageous to the human race, and therefore "immoral" in the logically supported sense of the word, would have been a greater "wrong" than fighting them.

Speaking of subjective conclusions ... there are many people in the world who wish the Nazis had won. War was actually very good for the German people until they lost. Their economy rebound from the shambles it had been in following the Armistice and the costs of WWI. Who knows what would have happened had we not entered the war? Perhaps the people (millions) of Tokyo and dozens of other civilian cities would not have been fire-bombed, and Nagasaki and Hiroshima not nuked. The victor tells the tale. My point was that war is horrific and self-defeating ultimately. We didn't win, we lost. Want to know how?

The military industrial complex we created in order to defeat the Axis now controls the direction of our national and international policies and practices. We support/direct/order the genocide of native peoples in Central and South America because they get in the way of corporate profits. We pay dictators for corporate protections and kick-backs and we go to war with nations which present no threat to us because it is a profitable thing to do for the MIC. It increases share value, you see. You should like that because it's logical - if you leave morality out of the equation. If we had not entered WWII the MIC would very likely not control our direction and we would not be a bankrupt (both morally and economically) nation. Heck, we might even be a peaceful nation by now! What a concept.

I was a US Marine. I ASKED to be an infantryman because I WANTED to go to Iraq with my best friend. I've recieved a back injury in training that haunts me daily; I'd be in perfect health if I hadn't made it my business to share the burden of the war, but I don't regret it.

Did the impetus to join up come from your emotional reaction to the violation of your personal concept of morality on 9-11? That's very sad. So many people wanted to spill blood on top of the innocents' who died on that day. Revenge is a bitter pill. I don't think murdering the killers honors the murdered in any way. It sends the message to our youth that murder is OK under certain circumstances, i.e., if we say it is. Not good. In any event, as we know, Iraq had precious little to do with it. More's the pity. Hundreds of thousands of additional innocent deaths. But it is good you are not aloof. You had me fooled.

What I contend is that war, simply by virtue of being war, is not necessarily the worst option in terms of what is real and observable, which I consider the only sound basis for a morality which can not be perverted by the subjective ideas of the individual at the greater expense of the human race.

I understand perfectly well what you contend. And I couldn't disagree more. War is never the best option. War is always the worst option. This is because war, by definition, causes great human suffering and misery not only to the direct participants but, most tragically, primarily to the women and children in its path. This is indefensible. It is not courageous and it is born of fear.

War is either the cowards way or the way of the businessman/war profiteer. We are cowards to kill all of those beautiful Iraqi families. The two Iraqis I have known in my life were the nicest people you would ever hope to meet. Completely self-effacing, generous and fun loving. But they are brown, they do speak a strange foreign language, wear sheets for clothing and practice that strange religion that has them killing for fun or savation, right? Pulease.

So please, I beg you, the next time you bring your utilitarian analysis to the concept of mass murder, preface it by acknowledging first that by dismissing the moral compass which should guide human affairs as illogical you yank away the last shred of human dignity from the suffering wrought by the violence that is promoted as somehow useful or necessary.

Do you watch the Simpsons? "Think of the Children!" Appeals to ad misericordiam don't go far with me.

I don't believe you.

Bringing logic to a name calling match is like bringing a chainsaw to a knife fight, and it's a lot of fun. Go get your own chainsaw and let's do this again.

A telling analogy.

[edit on 13-10-2005 by seattlelaw]

Originally posted by seattlelaw
Are we mathematitians first and foremost then?

When it is our aim to determine the relative merit of various alternatives, yes, we are logicians, which will involve a weighing and comparing which might be considered mathematics of a sort.

Does your epistemlogy hold no room for human motivations which diverge from solely utilitarian pursuits?

What relationship do you suggest exists between people's motives and the nature of knowledge? A man needs no knowledge whatsoever to be motivated in one direction or another. If you'd not been so compelled to make me check the dictionary (I feel no shame in confessing that I had to) you might have asked a more direct and relevant question, such as whether I consider morality strictly a matter of utility. The answer there is a resounding yes.
That which tangibly affects the world in a measurable way can be logically defended as having moral weight. Thus we can draw lines between petty superstition and morality. Compare for instance, by this standard, the moral weight of insulting a person compared to the moral weight of blaspheming in private. Many superstitions and religions would assign the greater fault to the second, but the greatest observable negative result (in the form of potential violent confrontation) is clearly with the first. In short, there is a simple test for any moral standard which any 5 year old can and typically does administer: "Why not?"

And who is to decide which behavior serves whose definition of utility? You, I suppose?

I would find that quite convenient to be sure, but failing that I note that my suggestion would bring morality into the same realm as law, where judges and juries are generally trusted to weigh the merit and logic of a claim. Morality which is not logical and can not be implemented by law is really just opinion, and opinion of course is an absolute liberty, as is action upon opinion to the extent that others are not affected, so there is no detriment to what an individual might call "his morality" in my suggestion. I merely put forth a way of stating principles which supports the already existant principle that one's morality does not override the law.

One must bear in mind the application of my argument to the topic at hand. The topic at hand is that it has been claimed, based on subjective personal moral opinions, that certain people have acted criminally. How did we make the leap from immoral to criminal? Does violation of morality imply criminality?
All I have really done is promote discussion of semantics in such a way as to discriminate between morality as a subjective opinion and morality as an absolute with legal implications. My position is that war is not necessarily wrong in the legal or practical sense, and that moral aversions to the war in Iraq not based upon evidence of that war being practically wrong or illegal, but merely rather on the assumption that war is always wrong, are subjective and irrelevant.

I say that morality holds no logic for you because you have abandoned an essential aspect of the human condition - the never ending search for what it means to be human.

Again you go to the subjective. That's fine for you, but how do you warrant the application of your claim to me? You must have some logical support for your position. Allow me to invoke the simplest test of any morality: Why is such a search essential for me?

It's truly a personal quest, and our adapting moral code(s) are an essential part of the evolution of the species.

Support this claim or everything which follows crumbles.

You preach stagnation of the species with your rejection of morality as illogical. Stagnation is illogical. Stagnation is death. How's that?

I have clarified twice that I do not reject any morality which can be demonstrated as having tangible effects, because that morality is infact not governed by the fallacy of ethics at all, but by logic. Your claim that I advocate stagnation is without merit.

Your premise is illogical. You begin by ruling that morality has no value because it is subjective by nature and yet you determine the merits of war based upon your own subjective concept of its value in material terms.

Material value is not subjective but measurable by the amount of change. Lives, dollars, land, strategic advantages, etc. which are preserved, lost, or gained often be measured. This only becomes subjective when you compare unlike units and are thus required to assign relative values. This is not always necessary, and I have made it clear already that there will be some ambiguity but that some situations can be absolutely measured. For example, a situation where one choice has a net loss of lives but a net gain of money can not necessarily be solved because of the need to establish a relative weight of lives to dollars. If however the loss of x number of dollars is projected to equate to the loss of y many lives as a result of poverty, then the option can be weighed not as lives versus dollars, but as lives versus lives.

I challenge you to place a value on war that is anything but subjective, even if you attempt to do it in dollars and cents. It cannot be done. Chaos theory will defeat you. War cannot be fought in a bubble or under glass. You are defeated. Now go sit in the corner.

Not quite my almost clever friend, I did not claim any relative value to this war as opposed to not fighting this war, therefore the inability to fully weigh the cost:benefit ratio of this war (if infact such an inability truly exists- it may or may not depending on how much research we are willing to do) does not defeat any claim that I have made. My point has enjoyed the advantage of not attempting to assert positive values but to challenge those who have asserted values, and to explain the situation in terms of where values can and can not concretely be established. At no point did I declare the application of what values can be established as demonstrating the moral value of this war as being either positive or negative.

In order to defeat me, you must demonstrate that it is utterly impossible for any war ever to be more advantageous than the alternatives and thus that my claim that war is not necessarily wrong in and of itself can not be true if the grounding I have asserted for that claim is factual. From your inability to establish the negative value of this war, which is demonstrated by your challenge above just as fully as my inability to establish the positive value of it (which I never hoped, claimed, or attempted to do) we can deduce that it is impossible for you to establish that war can never be objectively positive, and thus you can not defeat my claim.

War is always the 'most wrong' choice (particularly if you are the aggressor) because it represents a failure and abandonment of who and what you are, which is love.

1. I'm not love. Ask anybody. That's what makes me the The Vagabond- if I was love I might stay close to the object of my love.
2. If war is always the most wrong choice, there should have been no intervention to stop the holocaust. Don't get mad- you're the one who brought the holocaust up, I would have shyed away from it myself, but since you decided to play that card, I decided it was fair to apply a little logic to it.

War is a statement that you are afraid.

That's a pretty serious generalization. Can you seriously claim that the United States was afraid when we carried out acts of war against the warlords in Somalia who were starving the population to death? Arguably we were afraid that nobody would stop them from killing those people otherwise, but in that context the idea of war being about fear probably doesn't sound so horrible- of course how it sounds is subjective, so feel free to pretend you disagree just for the sake of being contrary.

But there is nothing to fear. Fear not. Death will come in any event. Do you fear it so much that you must kill others first?

Gotta love it when peaceniks accuse warriors of being cowards. Yes, I joined the USMC because I was afraid of dying, and that was the smartest choice I ever made. (/sarcasm) I don't care about the stupid war. Not everybody who thinks the anti-war movement is full of it is a Bu#e. One more time for the record: All I'm saying is that the segment of the anti-war movement which concerns itself not with specific demonstrable problems with this war, but with a general aversion to war based mostly on emotional fluff with very little logical support is making broad statements which do not stand up to scrutiny, and is criticizing a principle which has governed human affairs for MILLENIA without suggesting anything which might take that principle's place.

It is the soldiers and an apathetic citizenry (changing now on both counts) who make war possible. What if the warriors said 'no'? They have begun to ask themselves that question. Watch and see what they do next.

Yes, we've all heard the old quote "One day they'll hold a war and nobody will show up". It's oversimplified. Let's just suppose for a moment that for the next 100 years, no American soldier ever followed orders to go into battle. Do you think world peace would set in? Do you think that somebody else wouldn't step up to rape weaker nations, and that we would not lose our economic might as a result of losing influence abroad? And where would an isolationist America end up?
Perhaps you think we'd be like France, or New Zealand, or Switzerland? YOU WISH! Those countries trade with us. They have access to the resources that we plundered for, and those nations do some subtle plundering of their own as well. France destroyed the entire Cote d'Ivoire airforce (all 4 helicopters) in support of the trend of illegal immigration from the North there which is for all intents and purposes an invasion, because their foreign policy and economic interests in the region will benefit. Not all imperialism is military either. What about Western financial support for African regimes wherein the rich grow coffee and tea to sell us instead of food for domestic consumption? If your desires are carried to their full end then the civilian employees behind that conquest must also stand down. We'd become as weak and poor as those natons we exploit, and we would no longer have to make war- war would come to us! Would our soldiers sit idle then, and if they did would that really curb the violence, or only ensure that it was fully borne by Americans?

Self-styled liberal intellectuals think it's so simple. "Just let it go. Stop the oppression. Give peace a chance." It aint that easy. We don't start wars, we just fight the battles. Men were at war with one another before we were even fully evolved to modern form, and it's gotten worse with every single economic development from the the skinning knife to the cultivated field to the assembly line. It is the competition for survival which has given birth to most wars, which are really but high-points in a single continuous war that started somewhere in central Africa perhaps a million years ago when one semi-bald monkey chased another one away from a good hunting spot with the sharp end of a broken stick.

I pity Bush and wish no harm to him or his family. He is a failed president.

I agree. That might have had something to do with my suggestion that he be tried for treason and executed on the lawn of the whitehouse if the evidence exists to convict thim. Feel free to tie this into the subject at some point.

there are many people in the world who wish the Nazis had won. War was actually very good for the German people until they lost.

You're looking at the small picture rather than the large one, that's where you're going wrong. You have not uncovered any flaw in my expectation that matters be weighed based on facts and logic, you have merely ignored part of the facts in order to produce a wrong conclusion- this reflects poorly on you, not on the principle.

The military industrial complex we created in order to defeat the Axis now controls the direction of our national and international policies and practices. We support/direct/order the genocide of native peoples in Central and South America because they get in the way of corporate profits. We pay dictators for corporate protections and kick-backs and we go to war with nations which present no threat to us because it is a profitable thing to do for the MIC. It increases share value, you see. You should like that because it's logical - if you leave morality out of the equation.

How is it logical? You've carried the idea out imperfectly again in an attempt to discredit it. If I said 2+2=5, that wouldn't prove any flaw in addition, it would only make me some kind of moron.
Similarly, you have completely ignored the material weight of loss of life, of consequent lost commerce in that region, of money lost by the American people and others inorder to fund the MIC, etc.
If you set the equation up right to show dollars gained versus dollars lost, lives lost versus lives preserved, etc, which would take a great deal of research, I am confident that we could quickly discover the economic side to be zero-sum: all money which is gained had to come from somewhere else, and the lives lost versus lives preserved would almost certainly lean towards loss of life, which would make it illogical in the big picture, only logical for the MIC. This is an occasion for war between the people and their interests against the MIC and its interests. Such a war would be logical and "good" as far as measurable criteria are concerned if the benefits of it by stopping the MIC for the future outweighed the losses which would be incurred in the struggle.

If we had not entered WWII the MIC would very likely not control our direction and we would not be a bankrupt (both morally and economically) nation.

Or would we be under a German MIC with all of the same disadvantages? You are assuming the unknowable and weighing it unevenly in a desperate attempt to assert the superiority of personal opinions over logic.

Did the impetus to join up come from your emotional reaction to the violation of your personal concept of morality on 9-11?

Actually at the time that I went to boot I was fairly convinced that 9/11 was an inside job. I had not yet developed the views expressed here to such a level as I now have them, but I did suspect that there was less to morality than met the eye and I was not particularly opposed to war. I wanted to go to Iraq 1. Because I considered it only fair that if I share the benefits America derives from it's power that I should be involved in securing that power (I did not weigh the justice of the war itself). 2. Having resolved by the above motive that it was right to help with the war, other motives for wanting to go which were matters of personal opinion were not constrained by my notion of morality at the time, so of course loyalty to my friends in the Corps and the macho trip that comes with being a young man played a role.

As for the rest of your speil about 9/11 vs Iraq, that has nothing to do with it. I agree that revenge is illogical (that's not to say that I will not errantly support illogical ideas out of passion at times- I don't pretend to be Dr. Spock) unless of course the act of "revenge" is simultaneously an act of preemption of a second attack or of deterrence to other enemies. What you miss yet again is that I do not necessarily defend the war in Iraq. I only take exception to the general attitude in the anti-war movement which addresses all war as being a warcrime in and of itself and consequently throws that term around like it was nothing.

I understand perfectly well what you contend. And I couldn't disagree more. War is never the best option. War is always the worst option. This is because war, by definition, causes great human suffering and misery not only to the direct participants but, most tragically, primarily to the women and children in its path. This is indefensible. It is not courageous and it is born of fear.

You can not logically say that war is always the worst option unless you can justify the assignment of an infinitely negative value to war, or unless you can exhaustively enumerate the alternatives to war and one by one demonstrate that every alternative to every concievable war is superior to war. Worst, afterall, is a comparative term. You can say that all war is tragic and bitterly lamentable, that all war is born of prior wrongs which ought never have been comitted, that war is the product of a great idiocy in mankind, etc etc and I would agree with any of those statements. Yet I would not be able to concede that war is never ever ever the lesser of all available evils unless you can enumerate every possible case and assign the full values of every option in every case in order to prove your claim.

Vagabond:

The kids are out for conferences so I have my hands full. Nice response. I'll consider and reply soon. What is so important to us as a species is to keep the dialogue going. We're working on it, so that's a good thing. Bush abandoned it in favor of the PNAC plan of global domination which it implemented with lies and distortions. War always follows a break down in diplomacy. War is always either an emotional response (fear and anger) or a financial one - or both. The decision to go to war represents species failure.

Talk to you soon.

Vagabond:

... If a war is the lesser evil, it is right by default, and so, arguably, are the lies required to bring about the execution of the lesser evil. Ditto for the violation of the law as a matter of morality. The legality in and of itself is another issue. Just because something is "right" (or at least less wrong) doesn't mean it's not illegal of course.

So war here was the lesser evil somehow? Wouldn't diplomacy have been the lesser evil? If you can't speak to each other you use a moderator.

We're talking about the world's most powerful government and most powerful country, and it is impossible to get a few good minds together and actually negotiate? War was not the lesser evil, it is the greatest evil. War is about inflicting death. It represents, to me, the total failure of the human spirit.

There is ALWAYS a better way, and this time there definitely was, but you have a cowboy President who probably doesn't have one ounce of empathy in him for non-white, non-rich, non-Americans, because he never, in his pampered life, got to meet any who weren't caddying for him.

Suppose 75% of the people wanted to burn down not only their homes, but the entire apartment building which they and all of their neighbors shared. Would overruling them be wrong? It is no infringement of liberty because liberty ends where it infringes on the most fundemental liberties of another.

Firstly, how is this analogy being used? The 3/4 of the world who didn't want war were somehow endangering the other 1/4 who DID want war? Come again?

It's fairly obvious how weak Iraq's military was by the fact that they were rolled over in a few days. Also by the fact that not one single neighbour of Iraq was concerned that he was dangerous.

So to keep your analogy: The people who are whipped up in a fervor to attack are actually living waaaaay down the street, on the other side of the lake, and yet the immediate neighbours of the "threat" are not concerned at all, and they can even see into their yard.

Secondly, you want to talk infringement of liberty? How about having your country invaded by another one under false pretenses.

I haven't been in the army, but I never saw a "Freedomize" button in your average Abrams tank. A "Liberate" setting on an M16.

So you give people liberty by militarily occupying their country, creating an incredibly dangerous security mess for most citizens, making them suffer water and electricity shortages, and dying by the hundreds in bombings at polling stations and elementary schools?

Give me liberty or give me death is a good slogan, but you probably change your tune when you see your daughter's insides splattered all over the pavement after a suicide bomber, something you never saw under your evil despot.

I said: "What is to stop China from invading Taiwan using the exact same logic?"

You replied: Either American armed forces or nothing at all.

No, actually, American forces (the US administration) has ENABLED China to do it. By stretching its' military too thin in a war of aggression, and by setting a precedent of a superpower unilaterally invading another sovereign state under the illusion of national security.

And China could be stopped by other countries other than the US. There's this thing called "the rest of the world" that we non-Americans are pretty familiar with. Lots of it has big strong armies, and when allied together for a common purpose, it's quite a force...

There is the enhanced ability to prevent one of those nations most likely to acquire nuclear weapons and wield them in a destabilizing manner from acquiring them. There are the attrocities under Saddam which would have continued. There are probably 2 or 3 dozen things on either side that you or I would miss if we mulled this over for the next week. While that would be a stimulating excercise simply for purposes of debate, I frankly could care less about proving this particular war to be just.

You can't prove it because this was is unjust, by every definition of the word. As for stopping countries who are "likely" to acquire nuclear weapons and wield them, um, wtf is that?

The only guarantee a "questionable" country can have that the US will NOT invade them is if they ACQUIRE nuclear weapons as a deterrent to US invasion. Do you think Iran wants the Bomb to attack the US? And quickly get run over by the rest of the world in outrage?

No way, they want to have the bomb because they are AFRAID that the US will concoct some wild lie and then invade them. Because they just saw it happen next door. So they figure maybe the US won't invade if they know that their forces might just get wiped out by a thermonuclear device. It sure has worked for North Korea.

Iran doesn't want the bomb to kill American civilians, they want it to hopefully protect themselves and deter an invasion, or at least delay it. Because they see you as trigger happy and maybe a little paranoid.

1. Subjective morality is really not applicable, 2. real morality will probably be ambiguous, 3. War is not the least attractive option just because it is war

1. How so?
2. We have no "real morality" in world relations, we have International Law to govern what nations do to themselves and each other. The two don't always marry 100%, but we NEED to follow the tenets of the latter in order to ensure we continue as a species. To avoid countries who decide for OTHERS what is best, just because they are more powerful.
3. I totally disagree. War is always the least attractive option. If there needed to be killing, it could have been on a FAR smaller scale, and far more precise, and far more effective. A fullscale military invasion WAS the worst option, and mostly because of what it is and what it produces.

And subjective morality is all we got. I would go so far as to say that all morality is subjective. Is there some kind of moral code that doesn't come from humans, that isn't itself created and adhered to by an individual? Is there a Universal Morality that people of completely different religions and upbringings share?

Please don't say Christianity.


jako

[edit on 14-10-2005 by Jakomo]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
[
A man needs no knowledge whatsoever to be motivated in one direction or another... whether I consider morality strictly a matter of utility. The answer there is a resounding yes.

I'm sure I do not understand your point yet I question your premise. A man requires information to be motivated to act. The possession of information which is based in fact (and may lead to action) contitutes knowledge. A man must possess the knowledge of his desires (determined after inquiry and investigation) in order to be motivated to do anything at all. So I contest your premise without really understanding its purpose.

That which tangibly affects the world in a measurable way can be logically defended as having moral weight.

Again, I don't understand. Every 'thing' tangibly affects the world in a measurable way. But what do you mean by 'tangibly'? Is it tangible if it fails to affect your life or the life of anyone you know. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it does it make any sound? And how does something tangibly affecting the world have "moral weight"? Is that similar to venial vs. mortal sin? I would suggest that because morality is an individual thing, morals cannot be listed in heierarchy of value save by the individual holding that system of beliefs.

There is no universal morality and ones morality changes with time. For personal example, at one time I believed in the death penalty. It was only with serious inquiry into the matter (with colleagues) that I determined that my system of morals could no longer hold that view. I now believe that the death penalty is at all times immoral and degrading to the species. That is my personal evolution. I invite you to join me.

In short, there is a simple test for any moral standard which any 5 year old can and typically does administer: "Why not?"

Morals are what is left at the end of the inquiry 'why not'? 'Why not'? is a good question to ask for 5 year olds and 50 year olds. Once you answer the question and come up with a consistent answer you might be left with a moral. As your answer to the question changes so does the moral which forms the basis for your decision about how you and others should behave in a given range of circumstances. The question is not a test. It is an inquiry which results in a personal answer. A test implies that there is a right and wrong, but there is no right or wrong moral.

Morality which is not logical and can not be implemented by law is really just opinion, and opinion of course is an absolute liberty, as is action upon opinion to the extent that others are not affected, so there is no detriment to what an individual might call "his morality" in my suggestion.

Actually, the Supreme Court determined in Bowers v. Hardwick many years ago that morality can be legislated. Although that case has since been overturned on (I believe) other grounds. In fact, morality is traditionally codified in law. Without morality to guide it most law would not exist.

My position is that war is not necessarily wrong in the legal or practical sense, and that moral aversions to the war in Iraq not based upon evidence of that war being practically wrong or illegal, but merely rather on the assumption that war is always wrong, are subjective and irrelevant.

I disagree. War is a polite way of saying organized murder. My believe that war is always wrong is obviously not yours. Nonetheless, I do believe that war is always wrong as I believe that murder, whether state sanctioned or not, is always wrong. The only difference between Hitler's intentional muder of those in the camps and Bush's murder of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis with daisy cutters, etc., is that Bush's victims are considered casualties of war or collateral damage. Yet we know with certainty when we drop those munitions on cities that those people will die. Murder just the same. If murder is always wrong then so is war. You must admit the logic in that.

It's all I have time for right now. Enjoy your weekend.

Originally posted by Jakomo
So war here was the lesser evil somehow? Wouldn't diplomacy have been the lesser evil? If you can't speak to each other you use a moderator.

I must stress yet again that I have avoided making any absolute judgement on this war. The nature of my argument regards the viability of the theoretical concept of a "just" war, because I have taken exception to certain unsubstantiated moral judgements and hasty generalizations of war by those who subscribe to the ideology that all war is necessarily illegitimate and that war in and of itself is a war crime.
In short, attacks on this war based on the weighable evidence are completely legitimate in my view, and I have conceded the possibility that if it can be shown as probable that this war was fought for the furtherance of interests not belonging to the United States but of a much narrower group (the Military Industrial Complex perhaps) then the cost benefit analysis is in all likelihood hopelessly unbalanced in spite of any uncertainty as to the relative value of factors being weighed. I have also conceded that legality is a separate issue from morality, even though I propose weighing morality by logical standards not entirely unanalogous to those we use in law, therefore I have no bone to pick with the suggestion that this war may be illegal.
I take issue strictly with the unwarranted absolutism of those who oppose war as a general principle.

We're talking about the world's most powerful government and most powerful country, and it is impossible to get a few good minds together and actually negotiate?

Depends. Negotiations of course do involve force, only on a lower level than war. The force used in negotiations is economic, diplomatic, etc, and focuses more on what will not be withheld (the cessation of existing negatives). When possible this may often constitute the lesser evil. The problem is that since in all likelihood negotiations threaten to visit far less evil on the target than war, the force which can be brought to bear in negotiation may not always be sufficient to bring concessions.

Short answer: negotiation is usually the lesser evil in situations where it is infact an option.

War was not the lesser evil, it is the greatest evil.

As I have asked before, I ask again, it is the greatest evil out of which set of evils? Out of all possible evils? Only if we can perfectly assign the value of all possible evils and compare them (and for that matter which war- because different wars will include different levels of evil- at the polar extremes you could take a school yard brawl and a nuclear war, for example).
I would fully agree that war is a GREAT evil. I think that adding "est" takes the statement beyond support of evidence. Please note that my position does not necessarily imply that there will EVER be a war which I consider justifiable, it only implies that I would be willing to weigh that option and make the determination to the best of logical ability in each individual case. For all I know, for every mole of war (10 to the 23rd power), there may only be one war which is actually the best of all realistic options, or perhaps there has never been and never will be a justifiable war. I simply contend that this is not axiomatic and thus we must weigh the option and make the wise choice each time.

Firstly, how is this analogy being used? The 3/4 of the world who didn't want war were somehow endangering the other 1/4 who DID want war? Come again?

The analogy is being applied to war in general. The point is that if there were infact a situation where war was the best available option (which I contend is not patently impossible) that those who are aversed to war have no right to impose their subjective moral judgement against war at the expense of the balance of people who would have been better off as a result of that war.

Hypothetical example in the extreme: Bush and Rumsfeld make up their mind to use biological weapons on the entire non-american world, vaccinate the richest 1% of America, and then light up a joint and laugh about it. A secret service agent overhears, and has the power to kill them both, but he doesn't believe in war. I contend that he has a moral obligation to kill them both because his right to have a subjective moral view on war is limited when it infringes on the right of several billion people to live.

It's fairly obvious how weak Iraq's military was by the fact that they were rolled over in a few days. Also by the fact that not one single neighbour of Iraq was concerned that he was dangerous.

IF Iraq was anywhere near justified, and I do not necessarily contend that it was (I contended at one point that we had a reason, but to the best of my memory I stipulated that it was not necessarily a good reason), but IF, hypothetically, the reasons for the war outweighed the expenses, the reasons at issue would not be strictly confined to the capabilities of Iraq itself, but in the strategic and political advantages derived from the war, including greater access to Iran, increased political leverage over other nations relative to France and other nations who derive their leverage from the UN, etc. I stress that these are not justifications by definition, but that they are motives. and that IF (and its a GREAT-BIG-LONGSHOT IF) the somewhat ambiguous balance of real morality favored that war, it would be derived from secondary and tertiary effects of the war. The unlikelihood of this is amplified by the possibility that better means to the same secondary and tertiary results could have been found. I am dealing primarily in theory here, in opposition to the induction of erroneous principles based on this war, not in opposition to the facts or probablities surrounding this war which might lead to such inductions.

I haven't been in the army, but I never saw ... A "Liberate" setting on an M16.

It's right behind the trigger guard, but it only works right in the presence of uncompromising evil. Otherwise it's just a "kill" button.

I said: "What is to stop China from invading Taiwan using the exact same logic?"

You replied: Either American armed forces or nothing at all.

No, actually, American forces (the US administration) has ENABLED China to do it. By stretching its' military too thin in a war of aggression, and by setting a precedent of a superpower unilaterally invading another sovereign state under the illusion of national security.

Being stretched thin doesn't enable China to invade Taiwan- China could invade Taiwan even if God Himself were sitting on the beach with a pocket full of hydrogen bombs and a great big godly slingshot to fire them from.
America only enables China to possibly succeed in an invasion by being stretched thin.
Likewise China doesn't need a precedent to invade. Invasions can be carried out even without the illusion of justification.

You asked what is to stop China from invading, my answer remains nothing. 1. This is an unfair world. 2. Truth is universal- If it is hypothetically possible for an American war effort to be justifiable, then it is hypothetically possible for a Chinese war effort to be justifiable.

You challenged my logic on the basis that it would also apply to China, but I acknowledge that. There's no contradiction to be found there.

And China could be stopped by other countries other than the US.

This is a bit of a tangent, but I love to talk tactics and strategy so feel free to U2U me if such a thread should come into being.

The only guarantee a "questionable" country can have that the US will NOT invade them is if they ACQUIRE nuclear weapons as a deterrent to US invasion.

Deterrence is about more than defense. Deterrence is about being able to carry out a foreign policy with impugnity. I've got an old thread called "possible objectives of a nuclear Iran, an unlikely what-if" I'll try to pull it up in a search for you.
Iran would not only be safe from invasion if it acquired nukes, it would be able to excercise foreign policy in the region without fear of retribution- IF, for example they should choose to invade the United Arab Emirates and blockade the Strait of Hormuz, creating an oil crisis for their own political and economic profit, there would be not even the threat of force to add urgency to the negotiations.
For someone with an aversion to war you have a very interesting stance on weapons proliferation.

It sure has worked for North Korea.

It's been about 52 years since America has waged war on North Korea, and the only the single greatest threat of those hostilities resuming was brought into being by the "last chance" countdown before North Korea acquired a significant number of nuclear weapons. How can you be so down on war and so high on destabilization and the potential for the most destructive kind of war that mankind has ever devised?

1. Subjective morality is really not applicable, 2. real morality will probably be ambiguous, 3. War is not the least attractive option just because it is war

1. How so?
2. We have no "real morality" in world relations, we have International Law to govern what nations do to themselves and each other. The two don't always marry 100%, but we NEED to follow the tenets of the latter in order to ensure we continue as a species. To avoid countries who decide for OTHERS what is best, just because they are more powerful.
3. I totally disagree. War is always the least attractive option. If there needed to be killing, it could have been on a FAR smaller scale, and far more precise, and far more effective. A fullscale military invasion WAS the worst option, and mostly because of what it is and what it produces.

1. Because you can not warrant it. Your claim: War is wrong. Your grounds: It is contrary to your subjective morality. Your warrant (that which shows that your grounds actually relate to your claim: ???
You can not logically demonstrate the applicability of an unfounded idea in your mind to real situations.
2. International law is merely a system of treaties. Treaties, in practice, are only observed while they are beneficial to both parties. Treaties are merely words on paper with no value beyond the subjective sense of integrity held by those who are bound by them, or by the THREAT OF FORCE which is attatched to their violation.
That last part is very interesting; The only perfect binding of a nation to its treaty obligations is that which is imposed by the threat of war. Nations can not be compelled to actually go to war to enforce a treaty, they must make the choice. So if treaties are international law, then the true judge who meets out a sentence in a case of international law is the nation who wields the threat of reprisal. I believe we will agree that sentencing should not be arbitrary, but should be bound by some kind of logical standard. The real morality I have described serves as just that.
3. A small war is still a war. If small, precise acts of violence are the best sollution in a given case even in your view, then you concede that war is sometimes the best choice. The smarter and more humanely the war is waged, the better, of course.

Is there a Universal Morality that people of completely different religions and upbringings share?

I don't know. If there was, where would it come from? Would it come from a God? Morality declared by a God is arbitrary. It wouldn't have any more weight than the arbitrary moral decisions of a human being if it weren't for the fact that God is able to overcome a human if there were to be a violent conflict between the two. Even God's rule is by force.

This is interesting, and I do not find your principles unadmirable, I simply disagree with them because I am the sort of person who trusts chiefly in what can be proven. Seeing is believing.

Originally posted by seattlelaw
I'm sure I do not understand your point yet I question your premise.

Simple, you ask if my epistemology has any consideration for non-utilitarian human motivations. My answer, in simplest terms, is that the question was not phrased in the most relevant manner possible.

Again, I don't understand. Every 'thing' tangibly affects the world in a measurable way. ...
I would suggest that because morality is an individual thing, morals cannot be listed in heierarchy of value save by the individual holding that system of beliefs.

Allow me to rephrase for clarity. I do not consider individual morality relevant for any purpose not chiefly concerning the individual. Matters affecting others must be weighed objectively. What can be weighed and measured is objective. Lying is only subjectively wrong. Measurable negative effects of a lie must be demonstrated for it to be objectively wrong. I hand you a bottle of rat poison and say it's powdered sugar, and you eat it. That is immoral in real terms because there is a measurable effect in terms of dead people. On the other hand I could tell you that I once caught a fish [___________________________________] This big and there is no measurable effect to make it immoral.

Likewise, the moral weight of a war can be quantified, chiefly in terms of lives. (cross unit conversions are impossible without imposing subjective values- you must weight lives to lives, dollars to dollars, liberty to liberty, etc. not lives to dollars or even lives to liberty.) When it can be established to a high degree of probability that the number of lives saved by acts of war is greater than the number of lives lost as a consequence of the war, all other things being equal, the war can be claimed as a positive thing in the objective morality that could be applied logically for the weighing of policy.

there is no right or wrong moral.

Then what exactly is the practical application of your argument. Bush's morals value money over life and liberty, and by his morals the war is probably perfectly moral, because a few people made a lot of money.
You point can only be that you're against the war if there is no "right" or "wrong" moral. I have no interest in opposing that point, if it is infact your point as it would seem to necessarily be.

Actually, the Supreme Court determined in Bowers v. Hardwick many years ago that morality can be legislated. Although that case has since been overturned on (I believe) other grounds. In fact, morality is traditionally codified in law. Without morality to guide it most law would not exist.

There is no difficulty for my position in the fact that the Supreme Court has upheld legislation of morality because legislation is absolute, even if it is founded on somebody's subjective morality.
There is an equivocation fallacy in your use of the word morality here. The dispute was on the fair application of morality in a uniform way, which I suggest can not be carried out if morality is left subjective and personal, as you have claimed it to be. You countered with the fact that morality can be legislated, but the morality which is legislated becomes defined by the legislation, and so it only supports my assertion that to be used as an applicable standard, morality must be defined and measured in a uniform way, and that failing that it is inadmissible.

War is a polite way of saying organized murder. My believe that war is always wrong is obviously not yours. Nonetheless, I do believe that war is always wrong as I believe that murder, whether state sanctioned or not, is always wrong.

You are entitled to that belief of course. Far be it from me to restrict beliefs in and of themselves when I contend that something may only be judged if it has tangible effects (thus if you killed somebody because you were against war, or otherwise took negative action, only then would I have any reason to pass any judgement on your belief)

I simply do not see any logical argument for applying that belief as a universal standard, and I believe that you and I may be able to find common ground at least on that point, since although we disagree in regards to what might constitute absolute morality, we seem to agree that there is such a thing as subjective morality which, if enforced on others against their will, might not yield desireable results.

Murder just the same. If murder is always wrong then so is war. You must admit the logic in that.

I believe your premise is sound, and infact I do not differentiate between war and murder. In fact I do not even differentiate between war and a fist fight. The attempt to achieve a goal through violence, on whatever scale, is essentially the same. Hence you can deduce that I would not rule out the possibility that such a thing as justifiable homicide exists. The courts are with me on this.
If your premise is sound, and court rulings on justifiable homicide are correct, then war can theoretically also be justified.

It's all I have time for right now. Enjoy your weekend.

Likewise. This has been a great thread. Thanks.

Thank you too. I've enjoyed it also. These are important issues. I wonder if you truly understand how important. I'm just beginning to. Let me see whether I can explain what I mean.

I think we've been dancing around having fun with semantics about logic and morality arguing that one is relevant (logic for you) while the other (morality for you) is not when evaluating the merit or lack thereof of war, and in particluar the current debacle (my term) that is Iraq. My argument is that you evaluate a human 'event' (an inadequate word for such a horror) such as war (aka 'state sanctioned mass murder') without taking account of the human emotions that come into play before, during and after the event in determining its merit. The emotions are the driving force that also is an intangible, or something which cannot be taken into a logical accounting when evaluating merit. Emotions are essential to starting a war and ending a war.

Bush intentionally and fallaciously tied 9-11 to Saddam in order to whip the Congress and the public into the necessary emotional frenzy (hatred, fear) to obtain war authority. When that looked like it may not work he used falsified reports to justify the war because, as he alleged, Saddam was a threat to the US and the world because he possessed weapons of mass destruction, including nukes or the ability and plans to make nukes. He needed the image of a mushroom cloud in order to frighten the public and Congress into granting him the authority (moral only IMO because he never obtained legal authority) he required to go to war.

Thus, the basis for the war was centered on emotion. As we are emotional beings and emotions drive the larger (if not all) percentage of our behavior, emotions are also the foundation for how we respond to threats of loss of life, love, or meta needs such as food and water. This is the weapon against the world wielded by the neocons - FEAR - and the appeal to patriotism which brings up our unique war-making history and all the past justifications for those wars. You're with 'us' or against 'us' as in 'Americans.' Bring it on, etc., etc.

Fear is the emotion that makes us destroy one another. Morality is what tells us what are the limits on the behavior we allow ourselves regardless of the emotion we are experiencing at any give time. Without morality to inform us that violence or murder is wrong, we might kill out of hand for little reason at all. I say that as a species we will not make the next step in evolution unless we learn to live without fear as a primary motivating force in our creative process. That's not to say that fear is always a bad thing. Fear is a survival mechanism that works. However, as long as it is the primary motivator for our creative energy as a species (and we're presently putting 90% of our wealth and creative energy into weaponry and war) we shall not move up the ladder of evolution. I would hope you agree that we are not finished evolving as a species. I believe we will not evolve unless we put down the guns and bombs.

Now when I read someone such as yourself, obviously intelligent and well loved in the world, writing persuasively (to some I am sure) that morality is not an equation to be considered in the calculation of war I am somewhat stunned. This is, I believe without trying to insult, similar to the Nazis views of war and death. This is the view which allowed them to force twin children in freezing water to determine what the human body could survive. This is, it seems to me, the sensibility which allowed the Nazis to use human flesh as lamp shades. This is also what allowed US GIs in WWII to boil the brains out of Japanese soldiers and send the skull home to their sweethearts as souveniers. It is a dangerously slippery slope you advocate.

I understand that you wish to remain above (below in my view) the realm of human emotion in this dialogue but I do protest that the result of removing human emotion is to dehumanize us all and to make any abhorrent behavior subject to a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis which potentially gives mass murder two thumbs up. Even a discussion along these lines is frought with peril in my view. These types of analysis which intentionally eschew human emotion-safety-welfare and the morality which protects them as retaining a tangible and calculable value lead inexoribly to a thesis which quickly discards the necessary costs involved in protecting against negative human emotions derived from physical and mental pain and lack of sustenance (essentially, as it exists in this 3-D world, the love of fellow humans) as having little or no value. In other words, the cold truth is that you can't produce widgets from love. So therefore we disregard love of those who are not economic producers for one reason or ten thousand others? Are we that shallow as a species?

As long as love is considered unproductive, those without the power to protect themselves in any society will become expendable. And this is the state of the nation today with the neocons running the show. This is the example we show the world. The richest nation on earth spitting in the eyes of not only Iraq children but also our own. This is what makes the poor black population of New Orleans 'looters' while the wealthier and better connected whites are 'survivors finding food.' It goes way beyond rac'ism'. It's the new neocon human'ism' which, rather than respecting people disregards them utterly as not worth the space they occupy or the air they breathe. It's the new humanism for the new millennium. How do you like it? I think it blows. And I say again, your analysis such that it "wins" the day is a large step backwards on the 'ladder' of evolution.

In short, I believe I understand the foundation of your analysis but I find it troubling to say the least. And it makes me wonder what demons are lurking in your closet because in my experience those who abandon morality as a factor in evaluating the merit of human conduct are dealing with a great deal of personal pain. Put down the widgets and open up your heart. The world needs you, my friend.

I do not intend to be quite as verbose as I have been so far, but will make my closing by citing a bit of common ground I believe I have detected in your last post, and making a related clarification of my views.

We agree that there must be some force of sensibility (you call it morality, I call it logic) to protect us from the dangers of unchecked emotional response. I believe this makes the core of our disagreement chiefly one of verbage, not of actual principle. I prefer to call it logic because I see personal morals as being in the same realm of indefinition and corruptability as emotion, but the heart of sense of morals is clearly logical, for it says, "you can't do x, because then y would happen" (x perhaps being war, y perhaps being the loss of life, liberty, property, etc, and I note that physical loss or injury is typically the source of emotional pain, so again we find ourselves only at odds over terminology).

That being the case, I believe you would find, in virtually any given case, that my logic is not to any serious degree colder or less caring than your morality; afterall, they seem to be made of the same stuff. Where I weigh the loss of life, liberty, property, etc. (noting that liberty infact does have real value in terms of progress, as my new hero John Stuart Mill's On Liberty makes a point of proving) I implicitly weigh the pains resulting from such loss. Furthermore I forego any attempt to assign relative values between those items, so that it would never be within my grasp to perform such a cost-benefit analysis as would find it acceptible to trade life for profit (such as making lampshades from human skin).

Perhaps the one true area in which we may not be perfectly able to find something vaguely resembling agreement is in the consideration of war. For whatever reason (I am somewhat hard pressed to explain it without reopening the debate of morality versus logic, in which I see our postions as nearly reconciled and have very little will to undo that) you find it impossible that emotion should ever find a situation in which the mitigating force (either logic or morality) would find insufficient ground to object. I concede this only as a possibility, but not a certainty, so even in that we are separated only by a few degrees. In practice, if we two were each the sovreign of the same nation in parallel universes, I would make a fair wager that you and I would decide the majority of all potential conflicts in somewhat similar manners if we were to each adhere strongly to the principles we have advocated here (notwithstanding the chance that one of us, probably myself, would simply fly off the handle someday, perhaps because George H. W. Bush barfed on me at a banquet.)

So in short, I believe we will both find some agreement with Robert E. Lee- "It is well that war is so terrible--we should grow too fond of it"

But I for one also agree with George Orwell and John Stuart Mill
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself" -- John Stuart Mill

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" -- George Orwell

Tis strange Vagabond that you would quote Eric Arthur Blair considering he warned us against totalitarian dystopia.

Did George Orwell ever say: "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf?" Or: "We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us?"

Not exactly. But he did make comments that were along similar lines. In his essay on Rudyard Kipling (1942), Orwell wrote: "[Kipling] sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilised, are there to guard and feed them." And in his 'Notes on Nationalism' (1945) he wrote: "Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.". Where the rough men crept in is anyone's guess.

As for some of my favorite Orwellian ++good quotes:

"All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting."

"War is a way of shattering to pieces... materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable and... too intelligent."

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor."

"In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia."

I'll leave you with some quotes from one of the greatest soldiers of the 20th century who warned us against the Military-Industrial Complex, Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

"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."

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."



Rationalizing war is an act of insanity...rm

Originally posted by The Vagabond

We agree that there must be some force of sensibility (you call it morality, I call it logic) to protect us from the dangers of unchecked emotional response. I believe this makes the core of our disagreement chiefly one of verbage, not of actual principle.

Again, I respectfully disagree with this conclusion. 'Sensibility' is not a term synonymous to emotion nor can it replace emotion in any true calculation of the merit of war. Sensibility is a term which seeks to tip a hat to the grieving widow with downward cast eyes as the funeral passes by. Then it's back to war planning again. I suggest that you have a block in place which refuses to allow into your calculations of the merit of war real human emotion. The reason you and others (no photo's of returning caskets - no participation in funeral services) refuse to delve into the emotions of war is that it is incalculably more significant than any other measure of the merit of war. Witness the strength of Cindy Sheehan's emotion as just one mother of a deceased warrior out of hundreds of thousands of total deaths. The govt. is terrified of the emotion of both the vet's and the victims and rightfully so.

Because it is not possible to put a value on human emotion which can be crunched in an economic analysis of the merit of war, emotion (and its conclusion - morality) is given a back seat at the banquet. We shall visit emotion out of respect to the grieving widow but not because we deign to assign emotion any place in our "win-lose" analysis. If we do so any merit we find supporting war will necessarily crumble.

I will agree with you, however, that as long as a significant economic power on the planet deems that war is an available choice to make for one reason or another odds are that we will not evolve and war will continue. We need a species-wide conclusion that war is not an option before war will stop occurring. That is why it is essential that you bring emotion and morality (and not call it logic as it is not subject to logical analysis) into you calculations. Unless you do you will continue to be an apologist for war as somehow necessary.

Originally posted by Regenmacher

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."

"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."

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."



Rationalizing war is an act of insanity...rm

I could not possibly agree more with these sentiments. Ike's (and your) conclusions are wonderful. It is why I previously mentioned that I wished the warmongers would experience their own loved ones returning in caskets in pieces. Not because I wish them pain but rather because I wish them the knowledge that the pain would hopefully give them that war is truly hell and we should never seek war as a solution to any problem. Thanks for the quotes!

as posted by Regenmacher
Rationalizing war is an act of insanity...

And yet, despite Eisenhower's warning concerning the Military-Industrial complex, despite his own distaste for war, despite his veteran's perspective and wisdom concerning war, he was involved in WWII, the Korean War, and more importantly, had a significant hand in justifying and rationalizing the beginnings of US involvement in Vietnam.

How ironic...





seekerof

[edit on 15-10-2005 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Seekerof
And yet, despite Eisenhower's own distaste for war, despite his veteran perspective and wisdom concerning war, he was involved in WWII, the Korean War, and had a significant hand in the beginnings of US involvement in Vietnam.

What a politically biased perspective. I am shocked that you would cite Ike's service in WWII in an attempt to impeach his credibility. Also I am stunned that you have not considered or you have completely missed that Ike's past experiences are what lead him to his conclusions on the subject of war. But what amazes me the most is how easily faux patriots are willing to cannibalize their own forefathers.
.

Having studied Eisenhower in college for a military history class, his attitudes and dispositions regarding war are well-known.

You can call my faux patriot interpretation what you will, but a good history book and a few military history classes involving the study of Eisenhower, his involvement in WWII, the Korean War, and his significant hand in starting US involvement in Vietnam may be prudent for you?

You see, his words or pearls of wisdom regarding war, in general, where made after WWII and the Korean War, and interestingly, despite those wisdom gems he asserts, his hand in getting the US intimately involved in Vietnam seemingly counters or contradicts his sayings concerning war itself.

As a veteran myself, I have a healthy distaste for war, but to be insinuated or categorized as a faux patriot, though it may suit your rebuttal purposes, amounts to being flat out ludicrous and uneducated, having shed my own blood in two separate conflicts; about as ludicrous and uneducated as some insinuating that Bush and Blair acted like Nazi War criminals.....






seekerof

[edit on 15-10-2005 by Seekerof]

Originally posted by Seekerof
As a veteran myself...

faux patriot takes out flag.

having shed my own blood in two separate conflicts...

faux patriot puts a few drops of blood on his flag to make his arguement stronger.

You've proved my point better than any words I could type.
.

There are replies to several members here, for the sake of brevity (at least relative to what I have been posting.

1. DF1: There's no need to knock Seeker's service to make yourself feel good.
Go down to your local USMC recruiter- there's a pretty good chance that his office is right next to the local Good Will- I have no idea why that is, but that's how it goes.
Tell him that you're a little insecure and that you can't stand to disagree with a veteran- it reduces you to sputtering meaningless insults like a scared teenager. You'll be instructed to quit crying, then you'll be taken to San Diego and asked some questions, then you'll be sent to MCRD San Diego. 12 weeks later (more if you're a baby and have to go to Medical Recovery Platoon) you'll be a real man and you won't have to be afraid of Seeker anymore.

2. Regenmacher: While ironic, your pointing out other statements and points from those I have quoted as a counter to what I have posted is an appeal to false authority. What assurance do we have that these men's opinions are valid? Here comes the part where you call 4 fingers back at me, but no can do, because my argument was not based on those quotes, merely illustrated by them. Your argument, by contrast, is hollow but for quotes from individuals who can not be trusted as infallible.

2b. Seekerof: There's even more to it that you've already mentioned. Eisenhower did a lot more than just command US troops on foreign soil. His ACTIONS speak much louder than his words, especially when you consider the fact that he, as well as Patton, as members of General MacArthur's staff in 1932, helped crush Major General Smedley D. Butler's unarmed "Bonus Army" protest, despite any supposed "reservations" they later claimed to ahve about it. Mr. "I hate the M-I-C" lead armed troops in violence against 20,000 veterans, including one of the greatest Marine heroes ever, just because President Hoover apparently had an old bone to pick with Butler from their meeting at Tientsin during the Boxer Rebellion.

3. Seattlelaw: (How 'bout them Seahawks?)

Originally posted by seattlelaw
Again, I respectfully disagree with this conclusion. 'Sensibility' is not a term synonymous to emotion nor can it replace emotion in any true calculation of the merit of war.

Here we go again with the dictionary war. I did not use the term "sensibility" as anything akin to emotion, but as a check on emotion. Emotions, especially fear and hatred, are the chief ingredients of war. Emotion is not necessarily a rational force. Emotion is that force which boils inside of you when you want to punch somebody's lights out for something as trivial as a parking space. What shall check emotion, and save you from the consequences of emotional actions (war)? Some recognition of the disproportionate consequences of emotional action, not only to yourself, but to others. Call it conscience, morals, sensibility, or logic, it boils down to right before you reach under the seat to grab your gun and blow somebody away for changing lanes without signaling, you think "What gives him any less right to live than I? Does he not have children who will suffer from his death? What am I helping by killing him over this?" While a perfectly moral chain of thought, it also is logical. It considers real consequences and demands a reason to justify action.

I suggest that you have a block in place which refuses to allow into your calculations of the merit of war real human emotion.

Shall I eat if I realize that my choice to sustain my life will cause mental anguish beyond comphrension to a mentally ill neighbor of mine? If I am permitted to eat nevertheless, then you must concede that a logical weighing of real effects is necessary.
This is no hinderance to consideration of valid emotion (though it discounts irrational emotions, such as being violently jealous of a friend's good fortune), because an emotion not brought on solely through chemical imbalance in the brain is a secondary effect of a real world event. Therefore we can measure rational emotion in the units of its cause, ie: lives lost.

Originally posted by Seekerof

as posted by Regenmacher
Rationalizing war is an act of insanity...

And yet, despite Eisenhower's warning concerning the Military-Industrial complex, despite his own distaste for war, despite his veteran's perspective and wisdom concerning war, he was involved in WWII, the Korean War, and more importantly, had a significant hand in justifying and rationalizing the beginnings of US involvement in Vietnam.

How ironic...

And yet Washington and Jefferson kept slaves ...

To know that a given behavior is a moral wrong yet do it anyway is a betrayal of ones self. To abandon morality, know truth and preach its opposite is a fraud on the people and the ultimate hypocrisy. The neocon behavior is, in all respects, a result of an abandonment of morality (and the necessary personal accountability which keeping morals entails) in favor of 'ends justifies the means' mantra which encompasses everything they do.

I have not researched Ike's motivations for his choices as a national leader, but f you would like to know what motivates the neocons you must review the Project for a New American Century. This document, written before Bush took power, explains their motivations in great detail including the perceived necessity ot removing Saddam from power and installing permanent military bases in the Gulf of Oman region. It is the dogma of those who have never fought a battle, much less a war, which requires others to fight for them so that they might install themselves as the leaders of a new world empire.

So you may not think Bush and Blair are as bad as the Nazis (though I do believe they are war criminals) but their motivations quite are similar in that they are without morality and preach lies in order to win public support for their policies. This can lead to nothing beneficial for the vast majority of humanity.



[edit on 15-10-2005 by seattlelaw]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Your argument, by contrast, is hollow but for quotes from individuals who can not be trusted as infallible.

Considering no one is infallible, including you... I'll go with the historical track record. 10,000+ years of wars says carnal insanity is still rampant in the minds of man and your just trying to rationalize said insanity. When man can graduate beyond the destruction option, then maybe he can see a Class I society.

You have shown us that you are incapable of embracing ideals towards a world without destruction, and rather side with the nihlistic thrill kill kultists.

To create is divine, to destroy is insanity and no I don't play that infallible bilateral organic brain copulation game you seem to be fond of.

At least you're creating gray matter

[edit on 15-10-2005 by Regenmacher]

Originally posted by Regenmacher
Considering no one is infallible, including you... I'll go with the historical track record.

Wanna make a coherent thought out of that and get back to me? Do you claim that since no man is infallible that subjective opinions of men are on equal standing with logic, simply because logic can be exercised by men? Would this not undermine the most basic truths of math and science, despite their perfect functioning?

As for the "historical track record" was that record not built on the actions of men, and is it not interpreted by men, either through logic or through whatever you call the illogical process you apply?

10,000+ years of wars says carnal insanity is still rampant in the minds of man and your just trying to rationalize said insanity. When man can graduate beyond the destruction option, then maybe he can see a Class I society.

Perhaps we can just set aside the paradox of your previous statement and look at the historical record. A historical record in which no one has EVER devised any system of order and societal progress not predicated upon rule by force, which is in effect violence, which is of course the defining characteristic of war.
And Class I Society? Help me out here. I don't watch Star Trek. What is a Class I society, how does it work, how are individuals brought to choose good behavior, and what would happen if an individual did not choose good behavior? I am confident that no system which you can propose for such a fictional society is so glorious that a rational mind can not identify a point at which force or the threat of force (aka war) is the infact the organizing principle.

To create is divine, to destroy is insanity and no I don't play that infallible bilateral organic brain copulation game you seem to be fond of.

At least you're creating gray matter

[edit on 15-10-2005 by Regenmacher]

The infallible bilateral organic brain copulation game which you speak of is typically called either REASON, LOGIC, or INTELLIGENT THOUGHT. I encourage you to learn the rules and play a few rounds, even if you fare no better at it than my beloved Raiders tend to fare at their game of choice.