[mountainlion]

This year is the 100th anniversary of WWI and 150 years since the Civil war. 60 years ago we were in WWII then Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq... War has not solved anything so why do they try to blame someone on starting war and ignore finding solutions to stop wars?

[cuban leaf]

War has not solved anything so why do they try to blame someone on starting war and ignore finding solutions to stop wars?

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Wars are like poverty. They come with human nature. The best way to stop wars is to be so powerful that nobody dares start one. But even then, it is no guarantee.

Sometimes bullies want your lunch money. You can give it to them or you can bust a cap in their head, sending a message to other bullies.

[stremba]

I don’t know about that. The civil war certainly accomplished something. You don’t see slaves picking cotton on plantations in Mississippi and Alabama anymore, do you? That wasn’t going to happen without war. WWI and WWII combined to end imperialism and European militarism. Korea? The people of modern S. Korea are probably pretty thankful that this war was fought. Otherwise, they’d be ruled by a petty communist dictator who executes relatives (and likely others) for opposing his whims. Vietnam? Well, we lost, but the idea is the same; if we had been able to prevail, we could have saved millions of South Vietnamese from communist rule. Afghanistan and Iraq? The jury’s still out, but so far, Al Qaeda has not been able to produce a large-scale terrorist attack on US soil.

War may not be pleasant, and I agree it should be avoided whenever possible. However, sometimes war is unavoidable. Would you rather have had Hitler dominating Europe? Would you rather still have slaves on plantations? Would you rather still have the Soviets threatening to overrun Western Europe? All of these required war or the credible threat of war to prevent.

The simple truth is that there are people who are ready and willing to fight wars to acheive their goals. Typically these goals are ones that we find undesirable, such as preservation of slavery, domination of other countries, or promotion of poisonous and damaging ideologies. If we’re willing to surrender to such people, we can have peace, but at a high cost. Refusing to fight against these people doesn’t make them go away. Being friendly with them doesn’t make them give up their goals. The only way to truly deal with them, other than giving them everything they want, is to fight.

[Personal Responsibility]

I can think of several million jews who believe war solved something.