Give Peace a Chance

NY Times ^ | May 28, 2005 | JOHN TIERNEY

[neverdem]

You would never guess it from the news, but we're living in a peculiarly tranquil world. The new edition of "Peace and Conflict," a biennial global survey being published next week by the University of Maryland, shows that the number and intensity of wars and armed conflicts have fallen once again, continuing a steady 15-year decline that has halved the amount of organized violence around the world.

Those statistics are no solace for mourners in Iraq and Darfur. But so many other people are now living in peace that you don't have be a dreamer like John Lennon to take seriously the question raised by Gregg Easterbrook in this week's New Republic cover story, "The End of War?"

I posed that question nearly a decade ago to my favorite prophet, Julian Simon, the economist who spent his career refuting doomsayers' predictions. He was convinced that three horsemen of the apocalypse - famine, pestilence, death - were in rapid retreat, and he suspected that the fourth was in trouble, too.

"I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.

The Iraq war is sometimes described, by both foes and supporters, as a pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing, but not even the most ruthless accountant can justify the expense. Even before the war, America's military costs in the Persian Gulf were much greater than the value of all the oil it was getting from the region, and now it's spending at least four times what...

[Fenris6]

You don't seek Peace for its own sake.

[fr11]

The Iraq war is sometimes described, by both foes and supporters, as a pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing, but not even the most ruthless accountant can justify the expense. Even before the war, America's military costs in the Persian Gulf were much greater than the value of all the oil it was getting from the region, and now it's spending at least four times what...

I don't know any supporters of the Iraq war who believe it's a "pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing." To some of us, fighting terrorism and removing the world's most ruthless dictator is more important than money.

[NutCrackerBoy]

I don't know any supporters of the Iraq war who believe it's a "pragmatic venture to keep oil flowing." To some of us, fighting terrorism and removing the world's most ruthless dictator is more important than money.

I don't disagree with you but let me put it a different way.

I've debated moonbats and I choose to concede them a little cover for their "it's all about oil!" mottos. They're arguing from a position of impossible Utopian idealism anyway - they can't let go of the concept of the corrupting influence of oil and money. So I just say pragmatically: OK, you've got a point!

The entire world economy runs in part on oil; these guys in the Middle East have got it and want to profit from it. When one of them (Saddam Hussein in 1990) starts aggressing and conquering, motivated and financed by all that oil, because of the tremendous wealth involved, it's a big danger, a big destabilizer. And whatever is the cause of the terrible state of Islamic governments, if we don't make Iraq and the rest change, there are going to be terrorists with nukes crawling up our butts.

The US and friends conceivably could withdraw and ignore the Middle East, but the deadly economic/energy embrace we are all in won't let us.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

"I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.

I guess he never considered that in most countries, people don't have much to say about it. Has he never heard of places like North Korea, or Zimbabwe?

[endthematrix]

Saddam was messing with gyroscopes and centrifuges...The US initially counter-attacked Iraq after it's invasion of Kuwait in 1991. That ended in truce and stalemate for over a decade. To invade in 2003 to "keep oil flowing" as an excuses is ridiculous at best.

[Paul_Denton]

Peace can only be achived through SUPERIOR FIREPOWER

[Red Sea Swimmer]

Perspective is very important when assessing the state of world over an historical period. The unfolding of the true potential of Planet Earth and Humankind is a process. Sometimes it is two steps forward, one step backwards.

With continued and greater prayer, vigilance and right action we can make it 100 steps forward and couple of small steps backwards. The pace of the Redemption, i.e. Counter-Balancing, is up to us. We collectively reap what we individually sow.

[endthematrix]

"He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over."

Also the erosion of national soverenty and interdependacy of economies and treasuries actually reduce it, and in Marxist utopia, end it. Quoting back to Lennon, "imagine there's no countries"

[papertyger]

I've debated moonbats and I choose to concede them a little cover for their "it's all about oil!" mottos.

Why?

[djpg]

Tell bin Laden and Zarqawi to give peace a chance.

We "gave peace a chance" in Vietnam. Ask the people who live there how much they like it.

If we had given peace a chance in the cold war, millions of people would still be enslaved.

What kind of idiot thinks that cliches like "give peace a chance" constitute a policy?

[KeyWest]

""I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.""

It has nothing to do with getting richer and smarter. It has more to do with free, democratic societies.

Anyone else see that this prediction was after the fall of the Soviet Union? Truth is the Soviet Union got poorer. So if you remove the source of most of the trouble by changing its government into something more democratic and free, wars go down in number. So if we remove the source of the current trouble....

The war in Iraq makes all the sense in the world. Remove the problem, do not let it become a larger problem.

[Puppage]

"it's all about oil!"

If that were true, then we should have invaded Canada or Mexico for their oil and saved on airfare

[exDemMom]

"I predict that the incidence of war will decline," he told me in 1996, two years before his death. He based his prediction on the principle that there is less and less to be gained economically from war. As people get richer and smarter, their lives and their knowledge become far more valuable than the land, minerals and natural resources they used to fight over.

Of course, it takes a free society to allow people to accumulate wealth. The left, for all that they proclaim themselves pro-"peace", are actually actively fighting to maintain the conditions that lead to war, by trying to impose universal socialism (with its sidekicks, poverty and lack of freedom).

[NutCrackerBoy]

Any reasonable person will be able to move on from analysis based on economics and oil and be able to discuss the other real factors.

[AFPhys]

Iraq is not the only problem. The problem is all dictators and monarchs who give no voice to the people and no hope for their future.

Freedom is the way. President Bush has it right and people owe it to themselves study Bush's Liberty Doctrine. He first outlined much of it here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html
President Bush Delivers Graduation Speech at West Point

It was fleshed out in more detail here.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html
The National Security Strategy of the United States of America

Few understood the far reaching effects the Monroe Doctrine would have until much later on. FReepers can study the Liberty Doctrine now, and better understand this history in the making.

[Drew68]

So I just say pragmatically: OK, you've got a point!

I agree.

I've had the same argument. I always say, "Of course it's about oil! What do you think our cars run on? Love?"

I mean seriously, people act like fighting over oil is a *bad* thing!

[uglybiker]

It's not what you spell, it's how you spell it.

I just whish piece would give ME a chance!

[SERKIT]

Peace can only come after victory.

[AFPhys]

Sometime soon it will be time to give WAR a chance.

Iran's recent actions, and North Korea's, and indeed the treachery of such disparate organizations as the UN, CNN, NewsWeek and the NYSlimes, make it likely that will come --- with real death and real destruction being visited upon those lands.

Total defeat, with great civilian losses, may be necessary in order to end the Islamofascist terrorism and destroy the "popular support" they have. All their supporters must come to know their role.