Philosophy on war

Firstly, let me say, I don't know what motives Bush or his administration had for the war in Iraq, but I certainly don't trust him.

Secondly, I think that if we put as much energy, money and imagination into making friends and gaining trust as we do into waging war, we'd not need to be so worried about foreign states having the same weapons as us.

Thirdly, I believe many people (like Eros) are just blood-thristy xenophobes and war breeds them and breeds hatred on both sides in general.

However, having made those points, I just can't get past the happiness of the Iraqi people right now. I find myself glad that the war liberated them. Not glad that a war took place but glad that they are not under the oppressive rule anymore.

I count myself a humanitarian. I think many would call me idealistic. I have a natural aversion to condoning war. However, I now find myself re-evaluting my perspective. Would it really have been more humanitarian to let Saddam and his lot continue their reign of atrocities?¹ All that suffering of millions of people. All the abuses of human rights.

Is it not MORE humanitarian to intervene, even when it means hundreds of innocent people are killed and maimed at our own hand. Is not decades of suffering for millions worse than death or suffering for hundreds? I don't know, but I'm not as sure as I once was.

At one time I would have said that the key point was that WE are killing innocents - something we should never do. But then, aren't we killing them with inaction anyway, if we let evil men like Saddam continue? Is deliberately killing an innocent worse then deliberately letting one be killed?

What do you think? Bear in mind I'm asking about the general philosophical issue here, and I'm not talking about motives with USA for oil or motives with the French for money, etc.









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¹ I'm not talking about motives for the war here. As I said, I don't trust Bush. I doubt he would take action on humanitarian grounds in any situation. I would guess self-interest or national interest is all that motivates the man. Not admirable.

 

Well first of all war is not some kind of independent phenomenon. War is politics. Intimidation is a part of all diplomatic games (what's the point of talking to someone if nothing prevents you from just taking what you want from him?), and in order to remain effective intimidation has to steadily increase, untill it is either resolved (when its possible) or grows beyond a certain point, after which the means of diplomacy have to be replaced by the means of force.
Take the current crisis for example. The UN demanded Iraq to disarm and destroy their WMD by diplomacy only- lots of air shaking resolutions. Saddam didn't care- untill the Americans decided that it was time for intimidation. As soon as they started deploying troops in the Gulf, Saddam began pretending to cooperate, because having his arse kicked was the last thing he ever wanted. But in order to make him REALLY cooperate, the US had to deploy more and more troops. If you threaten someone with force, but never do anything, the threat becomes hollow. And of course you can only increase the intimidation untill "point of no return", when so much has been invested into the war preparations that calling the troops off would be an economic and political disaster.

As for the war itself- I think the whole perception of it had become majorly distorted lately.We demand a sterile world, where injustice should be fought, but we want fighting criminalized. We want cruelty to be discarded, but forcing the cruel ones into discarding it is considered cruel in itself. We want Saddam gone- but we want him removing himself, so we could keep our hands clean and stay on moral high ground. Is it logical? Is it realistic?

Here's a thought-provoking quote, translated by me from a Russian edition of the book "About war" by Karl von Klausewitz (1780-1831), a 19 century German strategist, whose ideas laid the basis for creating all modern theories of military strategy and who is considered to be one of the greatest minds to ever analyse war as a social and cultural phenomenon.


"Some philanthropists could even believe that it is possible to disarm and defeat the enemy in some mysterious peaceful way, without much blood being shed, and that this is what the art of war should attepmt to achieve. As tempting as it is, this thought is misleading. A war is a dangerous business, and the mistakes committed out of good intentions are the most pernicious ones of all. The use of extreme physical violence does not exclude sanity and rational thinking; therefore the side that uses violence without limitations and fear of bloodshed gains an enormous advantage over the side that doesn't. This way, one is capable of dictating his will to the opponent; both enemies have to strain their forces to the extreme, and there are no limitations to it except those created by the opposing forces from within their own ranks.
This is the way we should look at war. It would be pointless to ignore its very nature out of disgust and fear of the cruelty of it".

 

I'm not blind for the fact that a war can be a good thing, i applauded the war in kosovo when nato went in and bombed, the reason is that we stopped a mayor slaughter of people.
When we go in to stop something like that then i can be happy with a war, but what about the concecvenses?

If we are going to fight a war to liberate a people then we must do the job to the full, with that i mean that we should leave a stabile country behind, A country where everyone of the different groups in the country is represented, should be the result, this to ensure the most stability. The war in itself must be short, and the soldiers fighting must try not to offend the population too much, because if this happens the war might get unforseen consecvenses for both us and the people that live in such a country.

What i'm trying to say is that a war must be fought in a way that does nor leave more hatred and chaos behind, than the situastion was before, since such hatred often lead to too many eroses around.

 

I think these are all very interesting opinions. I agree with the whole idea that war is part of politics. As good as it may be that the Iraqis are happy to be free of Saddam. The liberation of Iraq is not the main motive behind the conflict. Unfortunetly you cant usually go to war just to liberate people. Proof of that is the UN's overall rejection of the idea of war. I supported this war. However I cant say that the idea of war made me happy. I belived the war was neccessary. What does make me happy is that now the Iraqis should be much better off than they were before.

 

I'm not so sure war is a part of politics. In the case of the war on Iraq, I can see where you are coming from, since the coalition used the threat of war as a diplomatic tool. However, if war was part of diplomacy, diplomacy would not be considered to have failed at the onset of war. I would say that war is an alternative to diplomacy. Where diplomacy is the act of asking for something (be it bargaining, entreating, intimidating), war is the act of taking something by force (be it land, governmental control, resources, whatever).

The distinction could be important, given Solaris' quote. Who is to say that force it the only way to prevent cruelty? Education is another tool. Heading off disfunction is an alternative to dealing with its consequences. Who is to say that enemies must be defeated? What about befriending them? Outside of true insanity, I would guess that it's hard to attack a friend.

Still, that's the idealist in me speaking, the idealist who would have been locked into endless, futile diplomacy with someone like Saddam while he tortured his people and built weapons to kill millions of people with. As I said, I am questioning that heavily. Never would I want to be gung ho about war or be hate-filled like Eros, but I'm starting to think that there might well be justified situations for using force.

 

You know, it's a shame more people from the holier-than-thou peace brigade (not that you're part of it Fatman) can't have an epiphany like this. Consider the other points of view people!

Fatman counts himself an idealist, I count myself a realist. Not to mention pessimist and cynical, but I always try and consider all views on a subject, and only take sides when I'm sure.

What I'd like to know is, why did the peace freaks feel they had the right to deny the chance for Iraqis to be liberated by protesting the war? They presumed to tell the Iraqis (somewhat indirectly) that they should put up with Saddam. There's a psychology term, I forget it, but it has to do with being ruled by emotial, irrational feelings and beliefs, like "If you believe in yourself, you can do anything". It's that sort of blind attitude that the peace protestors had which pissed me off more than anything else.

 

Diplomacy and force (as well as economic pressure) are two tools used by politicians, and using them depends on which one is more effective. Diplomacy have "failed" in the Iraqi crisis, because too many people put blind trust into it, believing that "war is not the answer". That leftt diplomacy as the only legitimate political tool, despite the fact that it obviously wasn't working. Diplomatic means can only be effective when BOTH sides are interested in resolving the crisis.

Force is the quickest way to prevent cruelty, and it does not require cooperation of the other side. That makes force the most effective tool in situations when your opponent is not interested in any kind of cooperation. Diplomacy would hardly work with the Nazi Germany (actually, in my opinion the French got conquered during World war II for this very reason- too much diplomacy).
Making friends takes two, and as for education, you can't impose your values on your opponent who doesn't want them without intimidation of some kind. Besides, education takes years. Even if all scchools in the Arab states began teaching democracy, we would have to wait for at least a GENERATION to see the real change.

 

Friendship works two ways, Solaris. If other nations had made more attempt to be real friends to the German people, who were having an extreme economic crisis, instead of looking after their own interest, I would think that an extreme nationalist movement like the Nazis would find it harder to gain a foot hold.

Jews were made a scapegoat for economic problems. The fact that some people bought their guilt is in some ways due to the Jewish people setting themselves apart from the communities in which they live. The same thing is happening today with Islamic communities. Excluding people from your community creates a differential that has an inherent potential for the type of friction that can give rise to conflict.

Having said that, clearly several countries relied overmuch on diplomacy in the face of the aggression of Nazi Germany. Both Britain and the USA could have possibly shortened the conflict by entering it earlier.

 

In my oppinion the french got counqered because they did anything in their power to break the germans after world war 1. If they had made economic ties with the germans and if they had stuck together then there would not have been such a hatefilled population left in germany. I bet that because if the way the victors treated the germans after WW1 there was to many Eroses around when hitler came, and that led to the war.

That is why i think war is an matter that should not be taken lightly, fi you go to war, things happens fast, and a lot of bad things can happen. A lot of hate can be left behind, hate that eroses can nurture into anger, wich can lead to great wars.

In many cases (this is the socialist in me speaking) i think war could have been prevented if we (many of the western) stopped thinking with our purse and insted started to wonder, why does situations escalate so that we have to go to war? Could we have gotten the same result not going to war?(not speaking of this war)

 

At the risk of spamming, I must say this is fantastic. I've kept quiet simply because everyone's said what I would say. I really can't find too much to pick apart. I agree with everyone, at least to a point on this one.

Fatman: Your views in the initial post just about echo my own.

Solaris: I can't find too much to disagree with.

Qilikatal: See above...:wink:

War is a fact. Sometimes it's neccessary. Many times it is not. The most important part is telling the difference...when neccesity warrants action, and to be wary of 'neccessary' becoming sheer brute force or bullying. Or good old fashioned empire building.

 

Actually, the French were conquered because Hitler wanted all of Europe, and the French happened to be there. Besides, the French had every reason to be pissed at the Germans after WW1, and feared that it would happen again, so naturally they tried to preempt that. Of course, it didn't work, and that lovely set of fortresses all along the French-German border didn't really come into play...

 

This seems to me unfair on Western countries. I think Asian and Middle Eastern countries are just as unhealthily motivated by the economy.

Also, at what point could we achieved the twin aims of avoiding the war AND relieving the oppression of the Iraqi people? (those are my aims by the way, I doubt they were Bush's)

 

Because of the way the situation was in iraq there was no other alternative. (i have come to this conclusion after alot of thinking)

Historically the western countries are the reason for a lot of the wars we have today, though many of the asians and some eastern european countries are problemtic i will have to grant you that.

 

I'd be interested to hear how you arrive at that one, Qilikatal. As far as I know, the middle east, asia, eastern europe, africa, india and just about everywhere else has a history of bloody warfare stretching back thousands of years before "Western" was even relevant the way it is today.

I'm not saying I support imperialism or colonialism. It probably reduced the cultural diversity of the world to a fraction of its potential, but I think we need to recognise the reality that the world has never been at peace. Peace is something we have to all take responsibility for building - not just the West.

 

Well the western countries was the countries that is the reason to the north south problematism that is still all over the world today, and i think that a lot of the wars we have in the world, (wery many civil wars) could have been avoided had not our countries sold weapons to these countries, a large amount of weapons is beeing produced an sold to poor countries still, and this in adittion to the lack of money that many people have is often reason good enough for wars to start. That said many of the newly industrialised countries in asia has its share of guilt too.

 

Tribes have been fighting each other since they could make weapons and use them Qilikatal. Muslims and Hindus used to have large wars, and now you've got Pakistan (descendants of the Muslim invaders) and Indians (descendants of the Hindus) still pissed at each other today. The Ottoman Turks founded a pretty huge empire at some point as well. African nations have been kicking the shit out of each other for a long time as well. How can you possible blame all these ancient conflicts which have carried into the modern day on the West?

 

What i'm trying to say is that many of the western countries are the producers of most of the weapons that are used in these conflicts. If it where not for this weapon production i doubt that many of the conflicts we have today would be as bad as they are.

 

There is some truth in that. To paraphrase the immortal Dr Col. Potter, of M.A.S.H. "How can we fix a man if they(weapons developers) keep coming up with better ways to kill 'em."

But, weapons production and sales aren't the sole province of the 'western world'. China, Russia, and the Arab world are just as guilty. That's not to mention 'freelance' and/or black market weapons dealers.