h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I believe that war *can* be justified, but only in extreme circumstances - e.g World War II. If Hitler had not been tood up to and stopped, then the effect on the world would have been even more horrific. The loss of human life would have been far greater if Hitler had progressed to take over the rest of the world, and the ideas behind his regime were

In contrast - the war on Iraq was (in my opinion) unjustified, and for reasons that even now remain unproven. We should not start Wars just to try to look like heros, and should not go to war unless it is shown that *not* doing so would cause more suffering and more death than doing so.

The final decision of whether we should go to war or not should lie with the people - for it is the people who will be fighting the war, and the people who will lose friends and family through it. It should be up to the people to decide if that risk is justifiable - not the politicians who sit in their cozy offices, with their bodyguards, away from the danger.

Everything in this posting is my own opinion and my own opinion only. But that's what you were looking for right?

"[we] should not go to war unless it is shown that *not* doing so would cause more suffering and more death than doing so."

I completely disagree. The example of WW2 shows that if you wait and wait until you are sure, the cost becomes enormous. In fact we waited until it was almost too late to start WW2.

Statesmanship is about making decisions in the face of uncertainty, and limited knowledge, and that means prosecuting war when the facts do not justify it, but - in the judgement of the statesman - it is the right thing to do.

Had the UK and France gone to war in the mid 30s to stop Hitler, it would have been as controversial as attacking Iraq was, but with hindsight we can see it would have been the best thing to do. People will always argue about whether it was right to attack Iraq, but in my judgement it prevented a much worse conflict later on.

In the case of WWII, we were in possession of the facts way before we went to war (or so I learned in my history classes) - and I think that in that case, we should have gone to war sooner.

However in the case of Iraq, the situation had been the same for around 12 years - and no-one felt any reason to go to war before. The only thing that had changed from 12 years ago (from what I can see), is that Bush decided that he wanted a war, and so got one. I wasn't so outraged about it until 48 hours before we went to war. The constant moving of the goalposts was pathetic.

Can you imagine if Iraq and some of the Eastern nations had done the same to America? The USA has way more weapons of mass destrucion than Iraq will ever have, as probably have the UK. "Disarm", "Okay - We're disarming, let's not get into conflict here", "Remove your president, his family and those helping him from the country within 24 hours", "Hang on a minute - that's a bit much!!! Even if we were going to do it, it would take about as long as that just to move them outside of the borders!!! Can't we have a while to look at this?" "Nope...(BOOOOM)"

The "statesmen" in power at the moment are a bunch of idiots in both the US and the UK (in my opinion) - and I wouldn't trust them to look after the best interests of my dead dog - never mind the best interests and safety of my country. However - with another 11 days until I'm old enough to vote, there's nothing I can do about it yet.

Again - this is all my own opinion, based on stuff I've read, and stuff I've learnt in class, and my own judgement. Then again, personally I'm pretty p***ed off with politics and so on at the moment anyways.

Lifson

Facts form an interesting set. Consider the vast number of facts you can have available -- where things are, what those things are made of, which people have access to them, where those people are, what those people say they want to do with their lives, and so on. Extracting from this mess of facts the meaning behind them all is the tough part.

In hindsight, perhaps the world leaders during WWII started off with the facts available to justify going to war sooner -- but they might not have known the right meaning to give those facts. Or they might have seen more facts than is retained for modern history classes, any one of which might have been sufficient to cast all other facts in a different light (and cause the leaders to derive a different meaning from the lot).

I'd say that the fault of the leaders of WWII (and of the recent war in Iraq) is less whether they acted in accordance with the facts at their disposal, or even how they interpreted the facts, and more with their inability to convey to the civilian citizenry their point of view in such a way as to be more convincing.

- emc

http://www.geoffcooper.com

RE 1st para:
Indeed so - however, one of the first tings I learnt back in both GCSE History and GCSE English is how to determine the neutrality (or not) of texts and other sources through their purpose and author. I'm sure that any 'Statesman' or Member of Parliament, and anyone else involved will have been well taught in such things.

RE 2nd para:
What you said is indeed possible, but however - regard the phrase "It is the winners who write the history books" (I heard that in some film or other). As the 'winners' of WWII (I'm English), surely it would be in our best interests to write the history books saying that we knew what we were doing all along?

RE Final para:
These people are highly trained and practiced in making the public believe what they want them to believe - this is how they got elected in the first place. Mr. Blair made the country believe all sorts of things before the election, none of which have come to pass. You only had to look at the front page of "The Independant" on Saturday, to see how both Bush and Blair told us many things about the war in Iraq, which they are now U-turning on. I find it very unlikely, that given genuine valid reasons for going to War, they would a) have held them back, and b) made such a mess of trying to convince us.

On the response to paragraph two, first:
It may well be that the winners write the history books, but that's not the entire situation. Each generation will bring its own context to the history written by both winners and losers.

Consider the problem of writing history from the perspective of a governing entity: you've just won a war and you have some plans for the present, near future and far future. How you characterize the war right now will affect how your plans go off. So, you put the spin on things that will get you through the immediate problems. Years later, people start to reconsider the history you wrote and start asking questions -- the history you gave that helped you fund reconstruction of your enemy at the time no longer meshes with your current need to place economic sanctions today, and people are calling you to task for apparent hypocrisy. So, you point out that the history of ten years ago wasn't the whole story, and where does that land you? Defending a story of the past that got what someone else wanted back then, all so you can do something now that you'll end up having to justify when it's over, so that ten years from now someone else has to make all of the histories line up.

Worse for the public and historians: none of those histories are necessarily lies.

On your response to my 1st paragraph:
I'm forever amazed at the skills people are ostensibly taught that they never seem to use. There's a story told about students taking a logic class: they are given the logical tools to solve a problem in class and they display mastery of those tools by solving problems -- then, later in the week at a pub (but before anyone has gotten drunk), these same students are posed a logical problem...that they seem totally incapable of solving.

I don't think it matters overmuch if the statesmen and politicians are skilled in the study of history. Even if they know to use those skills, their objectives are not necessarily to act in accordance with the ethics and values of the professed past, but rather to convince people to act (or not act) so as to accomplish a present or near future goal.

On paragraph three's response:
Bear in mind what I said above about having and using skills. And....

In the US, former president Bill Clinton got into a serious bit of trouble over an extramarital affair (private issue), sexual harrassment in the workplace (corporate issue), and lying under oath about it (federal issue), which led to an impeachment hearing (political issue). People fell on two sides of the issues as to whether the impeachment was proper or improper, generally taking one of two vies: the basis for it all was a personal issue, should never have come up, so the impeachment wasn't valid; or, the President should be held to a high standard, adultery is wrong and lying under oath is illegal, so of course he should have been impeached.

My slant: he should have been removed from office for gross imcompetence, because (as you've observed) politicians are elected for the sole reason that they're good at politics (in this case, sales and marketing on a grand scale), and being caught in such a political vise proves that he lacks the skill necessary to navigate through political storms.

My point? Clinton was elected because he was good at politics. However, he made gross errors (or showed serious negligence, anyway) in his political movements while in office. Bush and Blair might well have had valid reasons for going to war and either a) decided to hold them back (a mistake, possibly), or b) displayed gross imcompetence by making a mess of trying to convince us.

Here's the important part: their skill at politics is not in question yet. The challenge to their political skills will come during the next elections. If they are re-elected, then they prove their skills. If not, then they have proven a lack thereof.

- emc

http://www.geoffcooper.com
http://www.tinajens.com

I wasn't really going to write anything about this whole topic, cause I don't feel I have the right to do so, having never been in a country that has either been threatened by war or threatened to go to war which in that case would have meant that I had to do any fighting.

However, some of the comments in this thread got me thinking how some people's perceptions differ from mine so hugely, that I wanted to put my thoughts forwad on the matter.

First off, re: the age old comment that it is the winners that write the history books. It may well have been so before, but in today's world with news through TV, the internet, radio and newspapers, events will be recorded and stored for future generations to find and draw their own conclusions from. The documents are being recorded and stored as they happen (theoretically, anyways) and if one country decided to have an angle that would show the events in their favour, there will most likely be another news agency from another country will have another angle on the event.

Re: the comment that politicians and statesmen should not wait until they are certain that *not* going to war will cause more suffering and death.
I find that comment to be just plain stupid (sorry Skatehorn, this is not a dig at your intelligence, it's just my opinion about the comment). That's like saying that 'I've got a slight cough and I think it might be lung cancer, but I don't want to wait for the test results to get back so just remove the lung as a precautionary measure'. I know you will disagree with that analogy, but when you think about it for a couple of seconds, it's the same thing. 'We think that he might have weapons of mass destruction, but we won't want to wait for the results of the investigation, so let's just bomb the s**t out of the country as a precautionary measure.'

Re: the comment about the people should have the final decision about going to war or not. I would have to disagree with that. The general populous of a country that is about to go to war will *not* be put in harm's way, they will *not* be the ones who are being asked to go to a foreign country and kill people.
That duty would fall on the soldiers of the country. It's all well and good for John Doe to sit in his couch in Montana and say that the US should send their soldiers to war, but what if he had to go to war himself? Would he still vote in favour of a war? The answer to that question would most likely be a resounding 'NO!'.
I guess you'll read that previous paragraph and say "But that's why we have soldiers in the first place, to go fight wars for us". No, you're wrong. The military forces are not primarily there to go to war. They're there to protect your country, and if it happens that that means they have to go to war, then so be it, but I can guarantee you that the old Bushido (the old Japanese Way of the Warrior) saying that no-one abhors war as much as the warriors that have to fight it still rings true even if it was more than 500 years ago it was first spoken.


Can a war be justified? Yes.
Can a war be just? No. Because at the end of the day, the young men and women who fight the wars will be endangered and may lose their lives, thus leaving their families without a son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, father, mother and all because of some people in high places can't work things out over a cup of tea.


VRHG, aka LiS.

You really think the media today shows what is really happening, no propaganda inserted?
In Gulf War I, journalists and photographers were incredibly strictly controlled. In GW II the allies tried a strategy of more overt media coverage, but in effect, all the large western news agencies were propagating the allied war effort. Sure, in the islamic world they have their own news agencies who often have a completely different take on the story, but how many westerners pay any attention to those news agencies? It´s just one more thing that divides the world into orient and occident (and the twain shall never meet, or something).
I think the media is at least as powerful a tool for propaganda now as it ever was.
Oh, and look at Russian or Italian media if you really want to be frightened, both completely government-controlled.

I didn't say that the media of today doesn't insert propaganda into their broadcasts. I know that the news agencies are strictly controlled when it comes to what they can broadcast, but the fact still remains, if you venture out in search for another view and don't single-mindedly follow only CNN or Sky News or BBC or Fox News, but try to find information from other sources as well, you will find that there are other news agencies out there, possibly not all as sympathetic to the cause of a certain party in the war.

All I was saying was that if you want to find a more balanced picture of what happened in Iraq, you can nowadays with modern technology, where information can be sent world-wide within a few seconds. Everything is stored somewhere, and you could probably get hold of it if you really wanted.

Your comment about 'how many westerners pay any attention to those news agencies?' is right on the money. The problem is that most people don't want to look for a balanced story, but would rather sit in front of their TV and get the news force-fed to them by the big news broadcasting corporations, like the ones mentioned above.

Being Swedish allowed me to get the news about the war from a multitude of different news agencies, including the ones in Sweden, and since Sweden wasn't overly impressed with the evidence they took a rather neutral position in the reporting of the war, from what I understood. If I'd have been able to understand French, I'm sure I'd have looked at teh French news to see what they had to say, and they were opposed to the idea of war, so I bet their news were reflective of that. I don't know.

this concept of 'just war' is really aquinas' baby wasnt it.
anyway...

have to agree that war can be justified, in some cases, with hitler an oh-so-glaring example of one. but before that, the great war... who's gonna argue that it was ever justified? the way history portrays it, it looks almost like a farce, the way it started. it certainly could've been stopped at one of many many points in between, if someone would just step off his high horse and said 'hold on a sec, this is getting ridiculous, you'd think we'd wanna go and kill each other or something.'... but the end result certainly wasn't very funny. and if you include WW2 as one of the end results, it doesn't get anyone rolling around in the aisles either. history teaches us many lessons. one of them is that the justification for any war usually doesnt hold up very well, especially to those who lost friends and loved ones... lack of information and perceived, as opposed to actual, threats become less of an excuse these days... politicians ought to think about consequences more. they have the tools for it now. can't hide behind excuses all the time... and some should just stop lying.

War is almost always a means of forcing a political policy. If no other option exists then it is justified to go to war. However, I believe that the relative morality of a war is usually defined years afterwards.
For example, the Second World War cost at least 50 million lives but is always considered just and fair. An alternative solution may have limited the freedoms of some factions but saved millions oflives in the long run.
Therefore, the justification of war should be considered in terms of the ability to conduct the war with a minimun number of casualtys and in a short time. Of course it is never this simple. There have been many wars that have been entirely just but have had a worse effect than the thing they have been trying to combat.
The difficulty of deciding if war is justified falls to our representatives and this is why the democratic credentials of a decision are so important.

"[we] should not go to war unless it is shown that *not* doing so would cause more suffering and more death than doing so."

What test do you propose to determine whether more deaths would result from waging war than from abstaining? You can't try both before picking one. How do you determine which course of action would save lives? By guessing. *twists mouth distastefully* On the other hand, you can look at the country and its history and the history of its government and tell whether the people are represented and treated well (ie no chemical weapons in response to peaceful protest), whether the government is likely to attack (ie launch SCUDS at) another (Israel, for instance) without provocation.

Pepper spray used on protesters in Miami doesn't count, does it? You meant *lethal* chemical weapons used on peaceful protesters?

Actually any weapons used on genuinely peaceful protesters ought to be a clue about how democratic the govt is, but that's another story.

If you look at the history of a country and extrapolate how dangerous they are, you're also guessing. Is there another alternative that won't make people twist their mouths distastefully? Maybe a system of international laws? It would be tricky and debatable, and people like Richard Perle will still find it distasteful. Still seems better than guessing.

To what incident do you refer?

Okay, those "peaceful protesters" had Molotov cocktails and slings, and they were damaging property. Ten out of the thousand had to be hospitalized. Meanwhile, ten thousand people protested elsewhere in the city without any police incidents.

We could dance around this circle for a long time too. Police and fans of the status quo will naturally believe the claims that only violent or destructive protesters were arrested or hit with rubber bullets or sprayed with non-lethal chemical weapons. Protesters and sympathizers will naturally believe the claims that police response was extremely disproportionate, that buses full of protesters attending authorized events were turned away by police, and that dissent was targeted by $8.5 million worth of police build-up (somehow allocated from the Iraq reconstruction bill).

Could you cite your source(s) for the claim that ten thousand people protested elsewhere in Miami "without any police incidents"? My source at http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/26/1538221 claimed that over 200 people were jailed or arrested. As for the number who were hospitalized, I imagine there were more than ten who might have gone to a hospital if they hadn't been in jail or detained during that time.

It's easily plausible that some of the protesters who were gassed or shot with rubber bullets were demonstrating peacefully. Maybe it was even an accident, or people in the "wrong place at the wrong time", standing near someone else who deserved to be arrested or gassed. Depends who we ask or who we believe. I'm sure Saddam would claim that any protesters he used chemical weapons against were violent, destructive, that he was fully justified to retaliate against them.

I'm not saying this makes Miami equivalent to Baghdad under Saddam Hussein. It was just funny that something happened yesterday in Miami almost fitting your justification for the war on Iraq. Good thing the rest of the world does not act unilaterally against America in the same ways Bush has claimed justification to act against Iraq or Afghanistan.