Replies

Schavio saga, as tragic as it was, received an unprecedented level of attention and support. It would have gotten zero level of attention in any other country.

I know I will get flamed, but, I'd say that as long as a country engages in warfare, it cannot truly value life. Warfare, even against the merciless, zealot enemy, means death and destruction of lives. This idealist message belongs in academia.

I know I will get flamed, but, I'd say that as long as a country engages in warfare, it cannot truly value life. Warfare, even against the merciless, zealot enemy, means death and destruction of lives. This idealist message belongs in academia.

I'm not here to flame, but discuss.

I couldn't possibly disagree more though. I can understand where your thoughts come from but because of the enemy we face, we have only two choices: we can fight them and they die, or we can not fight them and we die. And our people will die in far larger numbers. Furthermore, many other people besides our own will die at the hands of these butchers from Europe to Afghanistan to Indonesia. If we truly value life, we will do what we can to preserve as much of it as possible. Unfortunately, that means finding badguys and killing them before they can cause any more death. That doesn't make any sense on the face of it - killing people to preserve life. But this is an evil world, and there ain't no law that says it has to make sense.

Pure nonsense.

We allow invaders to slaughter our wives and children but refuse to fight a war in which we might have to kill in self defense?

Even devout Christian, Sergeant Alvin York, the World War One Tennessee hero, searched his pacifist soul and realized that he had to take life in war to save even MORE life.

Warfare, even against the merciless, zealot enemy, means death and destruction of lives. This idealist message belongs in academia.

The vast majority of government-caused deaths take place during peacetime, not during wars. Prof. R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii estimates the ratio of those killed by governments in peacetime to those killed in wars at six to one. You can read more at his website:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/welcome.html

If the goal is to reduce the number of unnecessary deaths, it looks far more promising to replace authoritarian regimes with democracies than to tilt at the windmill of ending war.

WTF!!!

The United States engaged in a world war it didn't have to be involved in. The US gained NOTHING for itself by doing so, but freed millions from starvation, death, and torture by doing so. In summary, the US did it because they valued all human life, even those beyond its borders.

Good bumper sticker, poor logic. Using your reasoning, there is no country on the planet that "values life."

Think I'm wrong? Think, McFly, think: countries, by nature, have borders that need to be protected. If they are not protected, they are eventually breached. Tell me how someone who "values life" by your definition would go about preserving a country that refuses to fight back against a "merciless, zealot enemy."

It is those who don't value life that are unwilling to stand up and defend it. Defending it takes action not talk. Sometimes that action is war.

When you don't value anything enough to die for, you really have nothing to live for.

No one better understands the value of life than those putting it on the line to protect their families and country.

Too bad you don't seem to understand that.

I'll add that if we really didn't value life - by what you say is self evident by the mere fact that we are fighting a war - then why don't we simply nuke Iraq, Iran, Syria and North Korea? In twenty minutes the war would be over. No Americans would die. Our children wouldn't have to be shot at and killed. We could save billions of dollars that could go to far better causes.

That would be by far the easy way out. And if we were really the Great Satan that they claim we are we would do it and be done with it.

Hmmm... Why...

Could it be we as a nation value life? That we don't want to take the lives of those we see as "innocent"?

We put our lives on the line, and our wealth on the line simply because we value life. And it is a low thing to say otherwise. Especially to those actually doing the bleeding and dying trying to protect innocence.