"There is no 'just war'"

[rug]

Landmark Vatican conference rejects just war theory, asks for encyclical on nonviolence

Joshua J. McElwee | Apr. 14, 2016

VATICAN CITY The participants of a first-of-its-kind Vatican conference have bluntly rejected the Catholic church's long-held teachings on just war theory, saying they have too often been used to justify violent conflicts and the global church must reconsider Jesus' teachings on nonviolence.

Members of a three-day event co-hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the international Catholic peace organization Pax Christi have also strongly called on Pope Francis to consider writing an encyclical letter, or some other "major teaching document," reorienting the church's teachings on violence.

"There is no 'just war,'" the some 80 participants of the conference state in an appeal they released Thursday morning.

"Too often the 'just war theory' has been used to endorse rather than prevent or limit war," they continue. "Suggesting that a 'just war' is possible also undermines the moral imperative to develop tools and capacities for nonviolent transformation of conflict."

http://ncronline.org/news/vatican/landmark-vatican-conference-rejects-just-war-theory-asks-encyclical-nonviolence

[berniepdx420]

1. bout time!!!

[SoLeftIAmRight]

2. kissinger and $hillary had long talks about this one

...

[EX500rider]

3. So fight the Germans to a surrender in WWII was wrong?

Fighting to free the slaves was wrong?

Throwing out the British for independence was wrong?

etc..

[rug]

5. Was funding the Nazis' rise to power wrong?

Was enshrining slavery in the Constitution wrong?

The road to peace or war begins long before you wave a flag on the wall of the Alamo.

The actions that lead to the next war are being taken now as we type.

[Bradical79]

6. Yup.

Sometimes it might be inevitabile, but to reach that point usually something has gone horribly wrong. Also, during the war, even if not equally horrible, it'd be difficult to find a nation involved that is not harming or abusing innocents in some capacity. We sometimes try to mitigate such things, but it almost certainly will happen.

[EX500rider]

7. The US government didn't fund the Nazi parties rise to power.

US companies did do business with the Germans pre-war, as that was perfectly legal.

Fighting to free the slaves is either right or wrong, regardless was was written down in a previous century.

[rug]

11. If you consider IBM automating the Holocaust doing business to be "doing business."

Legality is not a blanket to cover atrocity. Hitler became Chancellor legally.

[EX500rider]

14. Who a private company does business is irrelevant to whether fighting the Nazi's was right.

So your position is we should have NOT fought the germans but let them have their way with Europe? nice.

[rug]

20. The hell it is.

Do you own stock in Halliburton?

[EX500rider]

22. So there has to be zero trade with a country pre-war to make fighting a evil regime just?

Nice pretzel you got going there....lol

[rug]

24. pLet's put ot this way. If your trade is weapons you should expect a war.

Paid for by others.

[EX500rider]

25. The US wan't selling weapons to either Germany or Japan....next...

[rug]

36. Hold on, there are some facts in the way.

http://www.americanforeignrelations.com/A-D/Arms-Transfers-and-Trade-The-interwar-period-and-world-war-ii.html

https://libcom.org/library/allied-multinationals-supply-nazi-germany-world-war-2

[EX500rider]

43. They used tanks and planes and rifles all made in Germany/Austria/Czech

[PersonNumber503602]

27. or was it wrong for the Soviets to fight against the Germans?

or the Chinese to defend themselves against the Japanese?

I find that a lot of people make statements like those ones only thinking of it as a way to go against the west, but when it's applied in other non-western centric situations it can bring about some interesting responses.

[jwirr]

83. Another thing that is wrong is that we have given the idea

of national security or self-defense a big role in how we try to justify wars. Yet exactly what is the definition of either of those terms. In Vietnam? In Iraq? In many of the ME wars we are involved in today?

National security more often means "protect US based corporations from the consequences of their own action". And self-defense can mean a war in some tiny little place most of us have never heard of before. Where is the self?

[lunatica]

102. Actions taken by warmongers.

And there's a theory floating around that many who seek power are Sociopaths and Psychopaths.

This theory make sense to me whenever I try to understand when upper management where I work make decisions that are invariably detrimental to the workers in some way. In my experience those people aren't there to run the business right. It's just to run the business. Mostly in ways that give them power in some way.

[Scootaloo]

37. Ever read Twain's "The War Prayer"?

“Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it —

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

let's take your example of the American Revolution. A rather large number of colonials preferred to remain subjects of the crown. if they made their opinions known, what do you think happened? usually they were brutalized, their property confiscated. tarring and feathering was a popular punishment for loyalists - that's when you're pinned down and a bucket of molten pine pitch is poured over you. Sounds "just' to me, doesn't it you? And what of those colonials who remained loyal to the British crown - you know, their nation who refused conscription, or who refused to house and feed soldiers of the continental Army (remember, there was no third amendment!) Well, usually they were shot. Right there, military execution.

And what of the Native nations that participated in the war? Remember, if you will, that one big reason behind the revolution was that treaties restricted immigration westward into Indian lands. Those nations further had treaties with the British, and when the war went up, a lot of them joined in alongside their allies who were working to protect their rights. After the British lost, what happened to these native nations? well, their "siding with the British" (instead of, I dunno, breaking their treaties) was used as pretext for the beginning of the american genocide against native Americans.

There are sometimes "necessary" wars (The revolution was not one of them, by the way. WW2 would be) But there is never a just war. There's a distinction there.

[EX500rider]

40. "But there is never a just war." In your opinion.

[Scootaloo]

42. No, in point of fact

In World War 2, were only German soldiers and officials harmed? Were all of those soldiers volunteers?

In the siege of Berlin, the Hitlerjugend were called into action. children, some as young as nine years old, were ordered to man anti-aircraft guns while their superiors scattered to safe bunkers. What happened to these kids? well, most of them were blown to smithereens by bombs. One moment there's a boy not even old enough for a single hair on his lip, next minute, a fine red paste splashed across a crater.

Is that just? of course it's not. But that's the sort of horror that happens in every single war. It's the nature of war. War is inherently unjust. The reason is simple. War is a conflict between governments, but the individuals in conflict are inevitably the people least-affected by the war. it's always two sides saying "let's you and him fight" and there are always people caught in the middle who suffer and perish.

Was fighting against the Nazis necessary? yeah, I'd say it was. We all know what they were doing and we can all imagine the outcome if they had been allowed to continue that path. But was it just is an entirely different question. That's my point. That "necessary' and "just" are different concepts, and that while a war can sometimes be the former, it can never be the latter.

[EX500rider]

44. Will unjust things happen in a just war? yes..

....doesn't change the justness of the overall war though.

[Scootaloo]

45. By that logic, any level of atrocity can be excused if the ends is deemed "just"

No, I'm afraid that unanswered injustice renders an entire thing unjust. Especially when we are considering something where such injustice are not only unavoidable, but are actually part of the definition of the thing. It is impossible to have a war where no innocent people are harmed, where atrocities are not performed. It's simply the nature of the thing, warfare is slaughtering other people on a mass scale. Bringing harm to the undeserving is not only inevitable, but is also often the entire point.

There is no justice in war. Killing someone is not justice. Killing the wrong person certainly isn't. Killing hundreds, thousands, millions of the wrong people? Absolutely nothing resembling just.

[Human101948]

126. You're talking to people whose eyes moisten as they watch Rambo movies...

Their sentimentality is exploited constantly and they have no idea that they are dupes.

[EX500rider]

94. Again, unjust individual acts in a just war don't change the righteousness of the cause.

[Scootaloo]

97. Except that there is no such thing as a "just war"

War is, by definition, and unjust operation. The idea of war is the murder so many people they the other people around them capitulate to your demands. That's what war is, always has been, and always will be. it is by its nature an unjust enterprise. There's a pretty good reason why through human existence, War has been cast as well, unjust, evil, a scourge on all people.

Sometimes it is necessary to fight a war. That does not make the war just. You are confusing these concepts, and that confusion has caused no shortage of death and suffering through history.

[EX500rider]

100. Actually if a bomb aimed at a military asset misses and hit a house..

....that is not murder, any more then if I blow a tire and hit a pedestrian, it's called a accident, not "murder".

Although obviously in WWII the practice of Total War included killing civilians.

[Scootaloo]

103. I was not aware that the point of a tire was to explode and kill people in a blast radius

That is, however, the function of a bomb. Indiscriminate killing is actually what they are designed for. In fact there are many variations on the theme. I mean you have your napalm bombs...



And you've got your flechette bombs...



And of course, cluster bombs



And then there's the old favorite, the antipersonell landmine



And while a bit primitive by comparison, there's the good ol' incendiary bomb...



And of course everyone's favorite, the atomic bomb (this was one of hte small ones)



And of course we can't forget the effect those bad boys have even outside of a war footing! Have to test to make sure they work, you know.



Would you like ot talk some more about bombs? we ahven't even touched on the idea of suicide bombs



or those delightfully Syrian DIY jobs, the barrel bomb


Or chemical bombs!



I can continue if you like. But let me pause, to give you time to tell me that bombs killing lots of people is an 'accident". Please. And while you're at it, tell me how those people deserved the just war that fell upon them.

[EX500rider]

105. You're asking if the German people who elected and supported Hitler....

....and help round up and feed the Jews into the ovens while trying to conquer every country they could reach deserved the war that fell on them the answer is yes.

[Scootaloo]

106. That's a kind of odd position for an American to take

It's also historically illiterate (Hitler was appointed, not elected) but kind of beside the point.

[EX500rider]

122. Most Americans think the war against Germany was justified so not a usual position at all.

As to whether he was elected or not:

People who say that Hitler wasn’t really elected are usually germanophiles who search for excuses for crimes of the german people in the “Third Reich” (the argument is that a small undemocratic minority oppressed the good people of germany).. The idea that Hitler wasn’t elected democratically is probably an allusion to the fact that he never got more than 50% of the votes (the best result was some 44%). Americans, with their “the winner takes it all”-system tend to forget that you can win a german election without winning a majority.

The problem with this is that, without a majority, you have to form either a coalition with other parties, or form a minority goverment, or both, and in fact that was the problem that had plagued the Republic from the beginning. To put the results into perspective, the 43,9% for the NSDAP in the 1933 election was the best result any party had ever had in the Republic of Weimar from 1919 to 1933 (second best was 37,8% for the Social Democrats immediately after WWI). Governments were habitually formed without any democratic basis at all, so the result of the 1933 election might have looked like a step forward.

It turned out that there is yet another way to govern without a majority – in March 1933 the german parliament passed what is known as „Ermächtigungsgesetz“ (Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich), a law that allowed the Nazi/Deutschnationale Coalition to govern without the consent of the parliament. That this was in fact an unconstitutional law is a mere technicality – it was passed with a vast majority that would have allowed to change the constitution in any case, so the parliament skipped a step.

So,since Hitler and the NSDAP had more votes than any other party during the Republic of Weimar and governed on the basis of a law that had been passed by the absolute majority of the parliament is seems reasonable to conclude that he was indeed democratically elected.

http://diebesteallerzeiten.de/blog/2009/02/19/was-hitler-democratically-elected/

[Scootaloo]

127. Do most Americans think they themselves deserve to be killed by Iraqis?

That's your logic.

[EX500rider]

128. Have we been feeding Iraqis into ovens?

Have we conquered or tried to conquer every near by country?

[Scootaloo]

129. Americans elected and supported people who destroyed Iraq.

By your logic, this entitles Iraqis to kill Americans, indiscriminately. we're all guilty, by dint of being Americans, in a democracy, and Iraqis would be 100% just to kill us as they please.

My point is that you are exercising bad logic, not that I actually think this is a good idea, by hteway.

[EX500rider]

130. No, we did not commit Total War unlike the Germans.

Overthrowing a dictator and installing a democracy is not at all what the germans were doing.

[Scootaloo]

131. "Overthrowing a dictator and installing a democracy"

We're done here.

[EX500rider]

132. Are you under the impression they are not?

The politics of Iraq place in a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Iraq

[muriel_volestrangler]

95. What's your definition of 'just', if a 'necessary' war is not a 'just' one?

The root of the word simply means 'legal' (like 'judge').

[Scootaloo]

98. "based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair."

[muriel_volestrangler]

101. So do you think it was morally wrong and/or unfair for Britain and France

to declare war on Germany in 1939? You seem to agree it was 'necessary'. Is it then OK to do something morally wrong, if it's necessary?

[Scootaloo]

104. I am not a believer in ahisma.

Yes, you can do something that is necessary, but morally wrong. I wouldn't go so far to say it's "okay" - it's still morally wrong - but the hand can be forced just the same.

[gratuitous]

4. It follows along the same lines as torture or the death penalty

As long as there are one or two "except for" loopholes, look for the powers that be to try to shoehorn any situation into one of those exceptions. Whether it's the ticking time bomb scenario (ridiculous on its face) or the particularly heinous murder, the temptation is there for the jailer or the prosecutor to figure out how the case at hand merits the exception. Whether it's a "1% doctrine" or the "unknown unknowns" or some other bit of locutional legerdemain, there's going to be the golden exception that says this creep needs to be waterboarded or that killer was extra depraved.

By the same token, as long as there is a theory of "just war" floating around out there, the warmongers will tailor their case for war to fit under the just war rubric even if it's total nonsense. It's human nature. We should indeed jettison this primitive relic of a bygone era; we've seen it abused too many times over the centuries to pretend that it's a benign philosophical point.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Go tell that to the Kosovars and the Tutsis.

Last edited Fri Apr 15, 2016, 08:22 PM - Edit history (1)

Sometimes going to war is right; sometimes not going to war is wrong.

Those whose memory of the mistakes of history does not extend further than 15 years back are doomed to repeat them.

[gratuitous]

13. Go tell that to the Iraqis

And the Guatemalans. And the Iranians. And the Salvadorans. And the Chileans. And the . . . well, you should get the idea by now. Because if you don't - and there's never been a shortage of folks who don't - you never do and never will. What's a few million more bodies on the altar of the High Church of Redemptive Violence? We are "in blood stepped in so far that should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er."

There is no other way.

[EX500rider]

17. Just because there are wrong wars doesn't mean there aren't just wars also.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Congratulations, you've convinced me of the existence of unjust wars.

Of course, that has nothing to do with the existence or not of just, or at least justifiable, ones.

[Scootaloo]

39. First, it's Kosovars.

Second, tell it to the Serbian innocents killed and maimed by NATO forces as well. men, women ,and children blasted and mangled, just as their nation was doing to Kosovars and Albanians, with the same argument of "fighting that government over there."

Was action necessary to protect the lives of Kosovars? Sure looks that way. Was it just? No. The only way it would be "just" is if only the guilty were hurt or killed in the process or its aftermath. That would appear to be wholly impossible to achieve.

[ronnie624]

68. +1

There can never be justice in murdering women and children.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. I'm Jewish. Fuck that. N.T.

[rug]

15. Apply the just war doctrine to the Mideast.

Then count the bodies on all sides.

[EX500rider]

9. And I suppose the US should have "turned the other cheek" after Pearl Harbor..

....and let Japan enslave or kill millions.

[rug]

16. Mayne they should have thought of that before selling the Second Ave El to the Empire of japan.

It made a lot of Zeros.

[EX500rider]

19. So the US companies selling scrap metal was somehow responsible for Japan's wars of aggression?

Not.

[rug]

23. Scrap metal, oil, food, technology, trade agreements may have had asomething to do with it.

Not to mention a century of western imperialism. Could it be the Japanese Empire felt their actions were just?

[EX500rider]

29. I am sure both Germany & Japan both thought their wars of aggression/mass murder were "just"

Doesn't make it so.

Also even if the US had zero trade with either country it wouldn't have changed the evil nature and ambitions of either regime.

[rug]

32. They both had reams of rationales for it, all sing the notion of "just war".

So did the Allies.

[EX500rider]

34. But the Allies were right in this case.

unless you think letting the Nazi's finish the Final Solution was somehow the high road. sad.

[rug]

38. Which is exactly what was said in 1919.

Hence one of the rationales for the Nazis.

You can't slice history like bread. You have to eat it whole.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. Yeah, and history includes the Spanish Inquisition, too.

Another reason to tune out the Vatican.

[rug]

57. Ah, another one-trick pony.

Don't tell me: the Vatican caused WW2. Amirite?

[Warren DeMontague]

60. Awwww

Imaginary all powerful sky wizard is getting picked on again.

[rug]

61. No, just the usual assholery.

[Warren DeMontague]

64. clearly.

[EX500rider]

72. Well if IBM is somehow responsible for WWII then I suppose the Vatican is too...

Apparently anybody OTHER then the Nazi Party.

[liberal N proud]

12. Stopping Hitler wasn't justified?

That is bull shit.

[rug]

18. Was supporting Hitler on his rise justified?

[EX500rider]

21. The US had several million companies I imagine in the 1930's.

A few of them doing business with Germany pre-war is irrelevant to whether crushing the nazi's was right.

[rug]

26. Sure, what's a few bushels of wheat.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/interview/henryford-antisemitism/

[EX500rider]

28. Pre-war trade would be zero excuse for not fighting the Nazi's or the Japanese.

Last edited Fri Apr 15, 2016, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)

[rug]

30. There would be no Nazis if sympathetic industrialsts lik eFord didn't trade with them.

Ans where exactly do you think the Nazis got those millions in profits that Ford made? Hint: it was before 1939.

[EX500rider]

31. The US could have had zero trade with Germany or Japan..

....and thing would have turned out just the same.

[rug]

33. That's an abysmal misreading of history.

[EX500rider]

50. Wrong

German and Japanese ideology was independent of trade considerations.

[rug]

52. Ideology without weapons is opinion.

Weapons without trade is impossible.

[EX500rider]

56. The US supplied neither the majority of trade or weapons.

Japan & Germany both had mature weapons industries.

You may have heard of Mitsubishi and Krupp and Porsche etc?

[rug]

58. How much did it supply?

[EX500rider]

63. Weapons...none..

German main battle rifle: Mauser
Japanese main battle rifle: Arisaka

Main tank: Krupp Panzer IV
Type 97 Chi-Ha

Main fighter: Messerschmitt Bf 109
Mitsubishi A6M Zero

None of those are US designed or built.

As to trade, both did more trade with neighboring countries, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 reduced American exports and imports by more than half.

[Adrahil]

47. That's a bullshit dodge.

No it wasn't. But Hitler DID rise to power and commenced to kill a bunch of people. Now what? Self-flagellate? Wear a hair shirt?

What a bunch of horse shit.

[rug]

48. The whole WW2!!! dodge is bullshit.

The question is what to do now. As long as there are yahoos posting about the necessity and justness of war, instead of taking steps to stop it, there will be one.

I can't wait to see your posts when the next one starts. I hope you'll have something more intelligent than "What a bunch of horse shit" and "Hitler!"

[AngryAmish]

35. About time.

There are no rules in war. There is no law in war. There is only force.

[Glassunion]

46. I only wish that the real world were so black and white.

This is a whole lot of fluff. Nice sounding fluff... But fluff none the less.

[Warren DeMontague]

49. I don't think the Vatican- who tells people not to masturbate and defends child abusing priests

has a whole ton of moral authority.

So whether or not they think something is "just"- I honestly don't give too much of a shit. I'm opposed to War, in general, but I don't need a guy in a giant hat to tell me that.

Sometimes it is necessary. WWII, was necessary.

[rug]

51. What wars do you consider necessary and just now?

I'm really not interested in your views on masturbation.

[Warren DeMontague]

53. Like I said, I don't accept the Vatican's moral authority.

I dont care whether you're interested or not, if someone wants to plop around in GD (as opposed to, say, the religion group) imagining that the Vatican is some font of moral authority as opposed to just a rather wealthy international organization which enjoys uniquely lucrative tax arrangements, you are going to HEAR about the fact that they have inserted themselves into the sexual morality of billions of otherwise uninterested primates on planet Earth, whether we wanted them to or not.

World War II was necessary. You can piss, moan, or argue that it wasn't, but it was my relatives who were getting herded into gas chambers, so you're wasting your time on that just as surely as if you were lecturing me not to use birth control.

[rug]

55. And I don't care what you think of the Vatican's moral authority.

Or the rest of your meandering.

I do care for an answer to the question: Which wars today do you consider necessary and just

If you can't or won't answer, just say so and spare me the rest of your moral self-righteousness.

[Warren DeMontague]

59. You didnt qualify your earlier question or statement with "today", didja.

Dont put your back out moving those goalposts.

Why do you think people shouldnt use birth control?

[rug]

62. No. I said "now".

What are you afraid of? Do you feel if you actually answer you'll be picked on?

[Warren DeMontague]

65. what am I supposed to be answering, again?

The Vatican made a moral absolutist statement, and one that at least to my reading applies to all time and not just this specific moment.

So two points, one the morally absolutist statement, while reflecting a general principle I agree with (war is, for the most part, bad and should be avoided if at all possible) simply does not apply to all situations, in fact the defining event of the 20th century arguably can be said to have been what most people agree was a "just war", for the most part.

Point #2 is, the Vatican's moral authority to make absolutist statements in the first place is questionable from my (and many others') perspective, that's putting it mildly.

Now, who's gonna pick on me? Angry nuns?

[rug]

70. One you're uncomfortable with.

Name a war now you consider necessary and just.

You claim to be evidence-driven and scorn absolutist statements.

KLet's see the evidence for a present just war.. Name one.

I'll make it easy. The answer is none or __________.

[Warren DeMontague]

71. You're right, at this exact moment, none.

And if we're talking about US involvement, I've said repeatedly on this board I think the last really justifiable military action the US has taken, was arguably the Korean War. (And it would have been fine- most if not all of the Korean peninsula would likely be free today- if MacArthur hadn't fucked it up by ignoring Truman and getting too close to the Yalu.)

I supported going into Afghanistan at the time, but I truly believed both that the point was to "get" the 9-11 perpetrators as well as to not leave that country in worse shape, particularly given what had happened to the place between the Soviet invasion and the Taliban. Now, in the words of Yoda, matters are worse.


But again, the Vatican statement was a black and white, absolutist one. And I always think it's funny when the Vatican imagines that the human species is hanging on its every moral proclamation, even without being able to remember certain uncomfortable contextual facts. Doesn't mean I don't agree with the Vatican on a whole bunch of things, but they don't have any more inherent moral authority to my mind, than I am sure I have to theirs. So they announce out of the blue that they have resolved by axiom or fiat with a single declaration, one of the more thorny philosophical sticking points of human morality "because we say so"... well, okay. I laugh.

[rug]

110. If you think it's a black-and-whit statement, it says more about your thinking than the statement.

It's about process. The process of peacemaking to replace the process of making war.

Neither war nor peace arrive full-blown on a sunny day. It's the result of millions of incremental steps.

To do either does not require a god or the absence of a god.

[Warren DeMontague]

120. Okay, if you say so.

I'm pretty comfortable with both my thinking and my track record in terms of consistently speaking out and protesting against war. I'll survive.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

78. Fighting against ISIS or Boko Haram, to pick an obvious couple.

Many of the groups and means of doing so are questionable, but I think the argument that they shouldn't be fought at all is obscene.

[rug]

80. Among other problems with that, is that neither is a state at all.

To use the terminolgy of war to stop those activities is as meaningless as saying we're fighting a war on drugs.

Would you support another Authorization to Use Force in Nigeria or Syria? Because there surely won't be a Declaration of War in either place.

[jwirr]

86. Exactly. W insisted going to war with a state for something

a group of terrorists did (9/11). At the time it happened I was upset about this because I saw it as a criminal act not and act of aggression by a state.

Had we used our legal groups to go after the individuals who were responsible for planning it we would not have had what is now called eternal war.

[EX500rider]

93. Unfortunately neither the Taliban/ISIS/BokoHarum respond to summons or warrants.

And the US Marshals/Interpol don't have the firepower or logistical train to go knocking on their camps with a arrest warrant.

[jwirr]

119. Yes, I was talking about how we could have avoided this mess

but these groups are now organized and very big.

[EX500rider]

124. At what point was Al Qaeda in Afghanistan small enough for a police response?

Especially with the backing of the taliban.

[jwirr]

125. I am talking about 9/11. We decided to use military action

instead of police action. Then is when the mistake was made IMO.

[EX500rider]

133. Yes and at the time AQ lived in large groups well armed in camps...

Police wouldn't have survived going anywhere near AQ training camps.

[jwirr]

135. Police were and did find and arrest terrorists all across the

world at that time. We have a bunch of people in Gitmo that cannot be tried for the crimes because no one has any evidence.

[EX500rider]

136. Several hundred well armed terrorists in the middle of Afghanistan were not going to be arrested.

[EX500rider]

137. It's the same reason Colombia doesn't arrest FARC & Philippines doesn't arrest Abu Sayyaf

Too many of them in hard to reach locations and too well armed.

[Nye Bevan]

66. Even Bernie voted for the war in Afghanistan.

Was he wrong to do so?

[rug]

69. Yes.

[EX500rider]

73. So the Taliban provides sanctuary to AQ who kills over 3,000 American in 1 hr..

....and we should send them, what? Flowers? A thank you card? lol

[rug]

75. The Taliban were there for years before 9/11.

The invasian of Afghanistan opened the doors to this global clusterfuck we've had for the last 15 years.

I have more confidence in humanity than to believe the only solution was for the entire western world, including you, to fall into line before George W. Bush.

oh, lol.

[EX500rider]

76. And your response to 9-11 would be what? A sternly written note?

[rug]

77. It would not be to invade and kill over 25,000 civilians.

(Wait, they don't count, do they? Only the less than 3,000 Americans on 9/11.)

http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan

What-ifs is a stupid game when the next one is right around the corner. I do know this military mentality and justification for war only greases the skids for the next one.

[EX500rider]

79. Actually if you looked into it you would find that 80% of civilian deaths..

....were caused by the Taliban. With the 2nd biggest source the Afghan military.
And since they were already IN a civil war before 9/11 what makes you think they wouldn't have died without the US involvement?


Most Afghans are well aware that in many way their lives are much better since the Americans arrived. GDP has grown continuously since 2001 with average family income increasing noticeably each year. In early 2001 only a million children were in school, all of them boys. Now there are over eight million in school and 40 percent are girls. Back then there were only 10,000 phones in the country, all very expensive land lines in cities. Now there are over 18 million inexpensive cell phones with access even in remote rural areas. Back then less than ten percent of the population had access to any health care, now 85 percent do and life expectancy has risen from 47 years (the lowest in Eurasia) to 62 (leaving Bangladesh to occupy last place in Eurasia). This is apparently the highest life expectancy has ever been in Afghanistan and the UN noted it was the highest one decade increase ever recorded. Afghans have noticed this even if the rest of the world has not.

[rug]

81. Read the link I gave you.

And post yours. I'm very curious as to which website put that quote up.

[EX500rider]

87. Here:

Feel free to try and refute the data, attacking the source though is a sign that you got nothing.

http://strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20160414.aspx

[rug]

109. No, in this case the source can speak for itself.

Dunnigan set up shop in a windowless basement in New York City's Lower East Side, and published his first issue from there, Strategy & Tactics #18 (September 1969); starting with that issue, every issue included a new wargame. 8 Dunnigan also designed the game Sniper! (1973). Dunnigan later designed Dallas: The Television Role-Playing Game (1980), the first ever licensed role-playing game. 9 In 1980, Dunnigan was forced out of SPI due to the company's worsening financial situation. He left SPI to write more books, get into modeling financial markets, and pursue other project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dunnigan

Sometimes, I just shake my head and wonder why I don't spend my time playing Halo instead of here.

[EX500rider]

123. They cover military subjects with more detail and authority then any other site, incld janes.

[EX500rider]

89. here, I'll even help:

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/afghanistan_statistics.html

[EX500rider]

96. And here's the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/30/afghanistan-life-expectancy-rising-survey

and causes of civilian casualties:

According to the United Nations, the Taliban were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2009, 75% in 2010 and 80% in 2011

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%93present)

[Rex]

67. Those that live by the sword, die by the sword. nt

Rome felt it.

[EX500rider]

74. Is that the same bible that says:

He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

[Rex]

82. Oh yeah and street running with rivers of blood etc..

Both OT and NT contradict themselves all over the place.

[jwirr]

85. Context?

[EX500rider]

88. Just responding to a biblical quote with another one.

[jwirr]

90. No I meant the context that this Bible quote was found in. I

have read to quote before but cannot remember. You do not have to look it up - I was just wondering.

[EX500rider]

91. NP it's Luke 22:36

[jwirr]

92. Thank you.

[Albertoo]

84. Just when I thought I couldn't despise the Roman Catholic Church more

Forget the asinine position held by the Vatican that its followers can choose between the doctrines of evolution or creation (which is pretty much an admission the Vatican is either clueless or spineless), forget the condoms or anti-gay laws in Africa with the blessing of the local RCC bishops, forget the pedophile RCC priests apparently everywhere,

now this? There's no just war?
Dammit, I really can't believe I could despise the Roman Catholic Church more.

When the Nazis gas Jews, it's just to take arms'. When Stalin created the cannibalism-inducing Holodomor famine that claimed 5 million lives, it would have warranted a war.

Avoid the causes earlier? Nice. Cute. You go and tell that to Joe or Adolf in 1933.
No just wars?
The Roman Catholic Church really has no business teaching anything to anyone.

[rug]

107. There you go despising the RCC for advocating peace.

From the same quarter that routinely cites the Crusades as evidence that religion poisons everything.

[Rex]

121. We have Torquemada to throw around, what do you have in comparison?

Fundamentalism sure does seem to be a bane of mankind.

[rug]

134. A good amount of posts in this thread.

[Albertoo]

140. This Roman Catholic position doesn't advocate peace, it advocates lunacy

As long as there will be mad power hungry dictators, there will be just wars. Now, Pope Francis might have found the magic formula that will repel all and any crackpot violent dictator from ever taking power and brutalizing their population. No?

Until then, the stance of the Pope is asinine. On this subject too.

[rug]

141. Someone is advocating lunacy.

In this case, refreshingly, it's not the RCC

[Albertoo]

142. You completely diverted from the issue

My point is crystal clear: nobody has found a magic cure yet to stop brutal mad dictators from taking power in countries. Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Kim Il Sung, you name it. Until such madmen stop popping up, there will be just wars.

And, for that while, Pope Francis will be a pathetic clown.

Just as he is when he urges Europe to open wide to Muslim migrants which have been taught by their imams back home that Europeans are miscreants who must be conquered. When he's not busy bumbling about the absence of just wars, Francis is the useful idiot of radical Islam. It will be cute when the Vatican is under Sharia rules in 2100.

Too bad there's no afterlife, or Francis could have taken the measure of his own stupidity.

[rug]

143. I take it you're ready to attack these "radical Islamic" countries to stop it.

It's clearly justified in your head.

But you will need a motto different from "Deus vult!" for this crusade.

[Albertoo]

144. Again, you're straying from the naivety of Pope Francis

To claim there are no just wars is not to understand human nature as it is.

And that's just one of the ways Francis and the Roman Catholic Church are irrelevant.

[rug]

145. Name one today.

Then justify it.

[Albertoo]

146. Liberating the North Koreans from their insane regime comes to mind.

Now, back at you: was it just to bring Hitler down? Or was it better to let the gas chambers operate uninterrupted to avoid getting dirty hands fighting a not 100% pure war?

[rug]

147. On whose authority?

Why would North Korea not be justified in resisting or preempting such an attack?

And how many dead North Koreans do you consider a fair price to liberate them?

[Albertoo]

148. None. That's why nobody can do anything. But that was not the issue.

I was not in the business of saying what UN-sanctioned group of nations could be arranged to do the job. I was merely pointing out that, in our imperfect world where no action is 'pure', some options are better, more 'just' than others. It would be a better global outcome to have the insane N Korean regime taken don than to let it stay.

That's why the sentence of Francis is so despicable. Yes, from an abstract, philosophical point of view, there is no just war. What is justice? In other news, the official N. Korean media have announced a probable famine this year. But why bother? Far better to stay put asking ourselves "how many dead North Koreans we would consider a fair price to liberate them?". Or what a just war is. Or justice.

Totally useless words from one who is supposed to give guidance to more than one billion individuals. Francis is an intellectual eunuch.

[rug]

149. You consider justice a "totally useless word"?

What are you doing here?

[Albertoo]

150. Little word games to avoid the issue.

Pope Francis will give you a medal. Or should. Anyway, you win. Enjoy.

[DavidDvorkin]

99. I was born Jewish in England during WWII

If not for Britain's victory in the Battle of Britain, my parents would have ended up in the ovens before I was born. That was a just war.

[rug]

108. Were England's pre-war maneuvers with Nazi Germany to check Bolshevist Russia part of that?

[DavidDvorkin]

111. Irrelevant to what I said.

[rug]

112. Not in the least. Their anti-communist strategems were part of the bundle that led to the moment

which allowed you to declaim on the morality of war.

There's a very good book out there: Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, by Nicholson Baker.

[DavidDvorkin]

113. Attempts to contain the Soviet Union had nothing to do with Hitler's desire to conquer Britain

Nor with what would have happened to Britain's Jews had he succeeded.

[rug]

114. It had much to do with enabling the Third Reich to attempt it.

Which, of course, completely justified the British Empire's modest contribution to the death of one hundred million people.

[DavidDvorkin]

115. Bullshit.

[rug]

116. That's persuasive.

Do I understand you to write for a living?

[DavidDvorkin]

117. Yes, and I can see when it's not worth wasting my time with someone.

[rug]

118. As can I.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

138. “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy of liberty or democracy?” Mohandas K. Gandhi

[rug]

139. +1

[braddy]

151. The first thing the Vatican needs to do is remove the 600 or so Swiss troops from it's own defenses.

[Sandersdemocrat2020]

152. War and Nonviolence

I think that Nonviolence is a powerful tool and something to aspire to. On the other hand, there is a lot of Violence in Human Nature. Militancy and War have been with us throughout Human History. Should we Americans have fought against the British for our Independence? Should we have fought the Civil War? Should we have fought the Nazis in WW II? Personally, my answer to these questions is reluctantly, yes.

Still, if we could find a way to solve global problems without resorting to War, then we should do that. I think if Human Civilization is to persist and advance, we need to grow out of our tendency to make War and kill each other. This is certainly not easy to do, but I applaud the conference participants for making a stand on Nonviolence. Gandhi's Nonviolence helped overthrow British rule in India without a shot fired. That is powerful and something to aspire to.

Some Wars might be more "Just" than others, but War is at best a necessary evil. Yes, we should have opposed the Nazis as we did, but the War was a terrible thing. I think that it is good that Global Political actors like these conference people are pushing for Nonviolent alternatives to conflicts. War is something that a more advanced civilization should outgrow. If we can avoid the next War through Peace efforts like these, then that is all to the good.

[forjusticethunders]

153. ITT: People thinking "no just war" means "all war is wrong and never should be fought"

War is a (sometimes very) necessary evil, but even with the best of intentions, with the best of justifications, there's a lot of immorality involved in the actual process of war that makes it "not just", because sometimes you have to make moral calculations no human should ever have to make. For example, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved millions of lives, most of them Japanese. Yet can we really say "vaporizing a few hundred thousand human beings" is just? It may have been necessary to avoid something even worse, but that's different from seeing it as a positive good (and calling a war "just" implies that everything that happens in said war is just". Strategic bombing took thousands of lives, largely because it destroyed the logistical networks that those societies relied on, but it likely saved many lives by shortening the existences of the genocidal regimes that ruled over them.