What is worth fighting for

[Zep]

If I attack him without provocation? Absolutely.

If I'm walking down the street minding my own business and someone attacks me or my loved ones with a knife, I am justified in using violence, even deadly force, in stopping him.

If that's true for an individual, it is no less true for a nation.

Fine. But have you considered that viewpoint while standing in another's shoes? For example and by way of argument only, if your nation was Iraq and the "attacking enemy" was the USA?

 

[crimresearch]

I read on the Vietnam thread the following comment.


There does seem to be a wider group of individuals who seem to ascribe to this view. I was interested in probing this more explicitly.

Do people here believe there is anything worth fighting for?

I imagine the Vietnamese could make a better argument for that position than say.....the Americans (or the French).

But I also bet that some Vietnamese would agree that war basically suxx.

 

[Zep]

This was something that Gandhi, a personal hero of mine, considered. He thought that it was possible to achieve victory over Germany through non-violence. The problem is that the Nazis had become a very lethal and efficient killing machine slaughtering millions in the gas chamber. Non violence would have likely resulted in the death of millions more and how do you non-violently resist a tiger tank? Mortars, cannon, rifles? If an enemy is bent on your destruction non-violence is unlikely to work. Hitler acted because he believed that he could prevail. He didn't care about diplomacy and he had no conscience. Such tactics are of no effect when they are used on a socio-path.

Quite so. But then my question would be: How did it get to the stage that a violent sociopath was able to motivate a whole country into doing these sorts of things?

Remember, this is my quote: "You know, we could have got the same result without having to kill each other by the millions if only we realised that...[insert blindingly obvious observation here]" In this case, what do you think would be the "blindingly obvious observation" that would have prevented Hitler's rise to power?

My own opinion, with limited in-depth knowledge of European history to draw on!, is to say the Versaille Treaty was designed not to stabilise Europe, and Germany particularly, but to extract a national and petty form of revenge by the nominal victors. It was a modern form of parading the captors through the streets in chains, raping and pillaging, and putting their cities to the torch. Hardly applicable to an industrialised era and location, and it was thus hardly surprising Hitler had a strong basis to build ultra-nationalism. The rest followed...

 

[RandFan]

Re: Re: What is worth fighting for

But I also bet that some Vietnamese would agree that war basically suxx.

I agree. War is hell --Sherman

 

[RandFan]

Quite so. But then my question would be: How did it get to the stage that a violent sociopath was able to motivate a whole country into doing these sorts of things?

Remember, this is my quote: "You know, we could have got the same result without having to kill each other by the millions if only we realised that...[insert blindingly obvious observation here]" In this case, what do you think would be the "blindingly obvious observation" that would have prevented Hitler's rise to power?

My own opinion, with limited in-depth knowledge of European history to draw on!, is to say the Versaille Treaty was designed not to stabilise Europe, and Germany particularly, but to extract a national and petty form of revenge by the nominal victors. It was a modern form of parading the captors through the streets in chains, raping and pillaging, and putting their cities to the torch. Hardly applicable to an industrialised era and location, and it was thus hardly surprising Hitler had a strong basis to build ultra-nationalism. The rest followed...

If you ask if war can always be prevented then I would have to say that given the many complex variables that lead to war that if one or more of those variable were altered then war could be prevented.

Does this render war worthless? Perhaps, war is insanity and brings out the very worst of humanity. The innocent are sacrificed and many professional soldiers are brutalized. The environment is seriously injured. Can anyone justify such things? I'm hard pressed to.

 

[peptoabysmal]

No war is really "worth it". People can always look back after it is over and say, "You know, we could have got the same result without having to kill each other by the millions if only we realised that...[insert blindingly obvious observation here]".
-Zep

Pretty safe to put forth some "blindingly obvious observation" after the event is over, since the now obvious option can no longer be tested.

All in all, doesn't this condense to "hindsight is 20-20"? Not exactly a revelation...

 

[imahbeng]

The US goverment just want to kill people. The is no logical sane reason that the needed to attack vietnam. The reasons to attack iraq and afgahnistan are even more freaking stupid. Osama bombs you and you freaking destroy their countries????

Who is the real terrorist.................USA

 

[LW]

Remember, this is my quote: "You know, we could have got the same result without having to kill each other by the millions if only we realised that...[insert blindingly obvious observation here]" In this case, what do you think would be the "blindingly obvious observation" that would have prevented Hitler's rise to power?

Now that we are in the realm of "blindingly obvious observations", could you please tell what blindlingy obvious thing we Finns could have done to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking us in 1939? Preferably one that doesn't involve willingly submitting under Soviet tyranny since that probably would have caused even more deaths than the Winter War. (As happened in Estonia: proportionally more Estonians died in the year before Operation Barbarossa by Soviet oppression than Finns in the war).

 

[Zep]

If you ask if war can always be prevented then I would have to say that given the many complex variables that lead to war that if one or more of those variable were altered then war could be prevented.

I agree, and I suggest that it would make sense to all concerned that the potential threat of war should be enough force the evaluation of as many of these variables and combinations of same to see if they can prevent it. Perhaps all nations could get together in one place and sort out their problems before stuff gets out of hand... Oh, don't bother - that doesn't seem to be a highly regarded option in some influential circles...

Does this render war worthless? Perhaps, war is insanity and brings out the very worst of humanity. The innocent are sacrificed and many professional soldiers are brutalized. The environment is seriously injured. Can anyone justify such things? I'm hard pressed to.

I agree with this too. Of all the things we could be doing with our lives, livelihoods and environment, war has to be the most negative.

 

[Zep]

Now that we are in the realm of "blindingly obvious observations", could you please tell what blindlingy obvious thing we Finns could have done to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking us in 1939? Preferably one that doesn't involve willingly submitting under Soviet tyranny since that probably would have caused even more deaths than the Winter War. (As happened in Estonia: proportionally more Estonians died in the year before Operation Barbarossa by Soviet oppression than Finns in the war).

I'll try, but let me just have some facts from you - facts first! I admit freely I have little knowledge of this history.

1) Why did the Soviets (want to) invade Finland?

2) What was the outcome?

3) What is the situation now w.r.t. Finland and Russia?

 

[Zep]

Pretty safe to put forth some "blindingly obvious observation" after the event is over, since the now obvious option can no longer be tested.

All in all, doesn't this condense to "hindsight is 20-20"? Not exactly a revelation...

Well, duh!

I make no claims that I or anyone else has foolproof answers to this planet's issues. However surely we can all learn at least something from our 20/20 hindsight? How about putting some lessons learned that way to good use before committing to another violent course of action? And eventually we will learn enough so we will do so before every violent course of action. One day...

To paraphrase from above, just as a child learns not to touch a naked flame twice because it hurst so much, so it should be with nations and war. But if you keep putting your hand in the flame anyway because "it's the only way to protect yourself", what does that say about your learning capacity? No-one "wins" wars, they just stop for a while, and then people try to pick up the pieces.

 

[billydkid]

of course

There are all sorts of things worth fighting for. I would have to say that all state sponsored wars are corrupt - that they are never about what they claim to be about and whatever good (destroying the Nazi's) they might accomplish is incidental to the actual motives for the war.

 

[crimresearch]

The Vietnamese people's long war for independence from Japan, France, and later, against America was certainly state sponsored on all sides.

How was it corrupt,and what do you think they should have done instead?

 

[LW]

I'll try, but let me just have some facts from you - facts first! I admit freely I have little knowledge of this history.

1) Why did the Soviets (want to) invade Finland?

Too long story to condense into one post (many, many long books have been written on this). The very short and highly abstracted reason is that Soviet leadership feared that some Western country (UK, France, or Germany) would attack Leningrad through Finnish territory so they decided to remove the danger by annexing Finland into Soviet Union.

2) What was the outcome?

Kind of a draw. Finland had to cede 1/10th of her territory to Soviet Union but remained independent. Soviets lost ~135,000 KIA and ~220,000 WIA (Krivosheev's figures, exact casualties unknown). Finnish losses were ~23,000 KIA and ~43,000 WIA.

After the war Soviet Union continued to threat Finland both politically and militarily, so Finnish leadership started to seek help outside. Finland tried to form a defensive alliance with Sweden but that one was torpedoed by Soviet opposition (Swedes didn't want to antagonize Soviets). Since fall of Norway had cut off the routes to Western Allies, this left Germany as the only possible supporter. So, one of the direct results of Soviet invasion was that Finland ended up in German side during Operation Barbarossa, just the eventuality that the Soviet leaders wanted to prevent.

3) What is the situation now w.r.t. Finland and Russia?

Peaceful.

 

[billydkid]

Well

The Vietnamese people's long war for independence from Japan, France, and later, against America was certainly state sponsored on all sides.

How was it corrupt,and what do you think they should have done instead?

I think many people would argue that the Vietnamese war with America was not a war of independence. Supposedly we were "fighting for freedom" in Vietnam in the same way we are "fighting for freedom" in Iraq. I happen to believe that US involvement in both wars was wrong. I was listening to a series on Vietnam on NPR and they interviewed a man who fought for the north. He talked about how he was compelled by the authorities to fight and that young men were forced to participate in that war - used for cannon fodder. Sure, many people who fought were fighting, in their hearts, against US imperialism. However the people who ran that war on both sides had their own agendas independent of the best interests of the people. It is always the case that wars amount to young poor people dying at the behest of old rich people. It was not a case of spontaneous uprising of citizens to cast off their shackles - and if it was it wouldn't be state sponsored anyway. There are plenty of just causes worth fighting for. There would never be any shortage of people willing to fight for a just cause. There would never be any need for conscription if states only engaged in just wars.

 

[crimresearch]

I think many people would argue that the Vietnamese war with America was not a war of independence.

That is an interesting take. It fits well with the 'no war is just' viewpoint.

(And I'll agree that the Vietnamese leaders had agendas...but they didn't attack the other countires to start a war against imperialism..imperialism came to them).

So would you extend the across the board evaluation of all wars (even defensive ones), as unjust, down to the individual level?

 

[Kodiak]

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --John Stuart Mill

 

[Kodiak]

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." --John Stuart Mill

Never mind! Just see Randfan's sig...

 

[Iamme]

I'd fight for my woman.

I'm not particularly fond of wars however. You could end up getting killed. Then, if you are dead, you don't know anything anyway. If the whole world got blown up because you didn't do your part to help fight, you wouldn't be alive to know.

I have to edit to add that I don't have kids. If I had kids I would feel differently, I'm sure. Maybe this is one of the reasons why we are *supposed to* have kids, just so we can act upon decisions like this to better the propagation of the human race, and not just consider our own personal feelings.

 

[bigred]

I thought this was already covered, but anyway...

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."--John Stuart Mill

Exactly.