What are your opinions on wars?

I don't exactly know where I would stand on this. I mean, yeah helping Iraq become a better government and all is fine.....but blowing a billion dollars on all of the fighting and trying to make peace there I believe is a waste.

I mean the US needs more of that cash.....I mean Katrina victims are still living in those trailer homes in New Orleans. The rebuilding there needs all the money it can get and such too.

You know because New Orleans is almost completely below sea level , at this rate new houses would need to be built on stilts or hydrolic(sp?) lifts, that way it will make it safer for people living there from a flood. As for war.. like , the current war on terror, I believe it to be ridiculous!...It's been like almost 6 years and theyre still sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and by doing that all they are doing is making the soldiers die once they set foot on those two areas..freakin war of terror needs to end soon.

Yeah I'm watching the Weather Channel.....it really is a shame that more of this money is not going towards strengthening the levee system and such for New Orleans.

Really....Iraq needs to get it's own rear in gear because we got far too many problems here to be sending troops and weapons over there.

Waging war against a tyrant, or some other form of specific enemy is fine with me, it's just when you get into wars against an idea or a belief, then you're fighting a pointless, fruitless battle. For example:

War against Hitler=Good
War against Communism=Bad

War against Saddam Hussein=Good
War against Terror=Bad

War has shaped our history, our present, and will shape our future, it's as natural a part of human existence as the air we breathe. I like the episode of South Park, where Benjamin Franklin comes up and says that we need both people for war, and people against it, so that we don't look too agressive, but we don't look like wussies either. No truer words spoken in a cartoon.

War=bad

I don't see a point in war. I'm not a total pacifist and could see war as a necessity, but I have never fought in a war and planning to never do it. So how can I be a pragmatist in such a case? I really don't know.

But my life focuses on science and art, which probably tries to avoid war as most as possible. I'm not a politician or even a political expert. I don't know the philosophies of war or war strategy or survival. I just know that destroying another person is wrong no matter where they are and who they are.

There are good and bad things about war. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was good. He was a monster. However, I do not see why the Americans (and any other countries that may be helping out there) are still there, losing so many people. It's a waste of life. But then again, I believe it should not be up to us to decide if we should have troops in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It should be up to the men and women who are risking their lives over in those two countries.

Though I don't think there is any point in being in Iraq. As long as the US holds the Iraqi Governments hand, the longer they will not learn to do things for themselves.

...Kill Saddam Hussein and then let all of the Iraqis fight against each other. Yeah, that makes sense. I don't think Saddam was a "monster". He was an asshole, bad, mean, stubborn, whatever, but it wasn't like he was invading countries again. North Korea and Iran is more important. Saddam was a small fry.

Yes, Saddam was a small fry compared to other places, but invading north korea or Iran would have been completely idiotic, due to the ever difficult job of keeping political harmony in the world. In my humble opinion killing is wrong almost all the time, unless you kill to protect, then there's really nothing wrong with it, as it was necessary to preserve the life of another.

I wasn't thinking about invading Iran or N. Korea though. It was more like saying that if you're going to invade a country at least get the one that's more important. If not, it's better to have reliable resources in hand when you're against N. Korea and/or Iran than have most of our troops working in Iraq.

The Iraqi occupation has been a disaster, and I firmly believed this ever since 2003. No strong democratic government, civil warfare, occupation w/ unsufficient number of troops, intelligence, reason, armor, the list goes on.

Oh I agree, it has been a disaster, another Vietnam in the making, if only for the reason that we're senselessly sacrificing our soldiers to fight off the religion of terrorism. Generally speaking, it's very, very hard to fight a war and win against any type of "-ism"

The problem with Iraq and Afghanistan seems to be that The US (and allies) can't back out without making the situation worse then it was before hand. Waging a war is very easy, just basically shoot anything that moves and bomb a bit (yeah sarcasm) but the long term consequences. Saddam might have been a "Monster" but relatively harmless to the rest of the world (he was smart enough to know that the rest of the world wouldn't sit and watch another invasion, except towards Iran maybe) while if all the troops leave Iraq now you get a breeding ground for terrorists like Afghanistan was/is with free reign.

Saying that Saddam was a monster sounds like a good reason to invade and "liberate" Iraq but to be honest it's total rubbish, there are other countries suffering from Dictators who are killing their nations (and are possibly worse then Saddam was) and yet nobody says or does anything (think Zimbabwe or Darfur).
Breeding ground for terrorists, never heard evidence that it was and I read the news daily.
Chemical/Nuclear weapons still nothing found after all these years.

So basically totally against war on Iraq it only made things worse imho and in general against wars because even though it seems like a quick solution the long term consequences outweigh the short term ones

It's already happening, and it shouldn't be a shock to people. People take extreme measures and extreme beliefs in really troublesome times. The Middle East has been a f*cked up place (not f*cked up people living there) for some time now.

Thank you.

I don't know what newspaper/newsite you read daily, but there's not much need when you hear of suicide bombs almost daily. I would try to find an article, but I'm afraid that I'm just too damn lazy at 8 in the morning.

I think you just help me lean towards pacifism more. Choosing between pacifism and "necessary" warfare has been really hard for me since both sides are very argumentative (and actually makes more sense to me than most other issues).

I meant before the invasion, the terrorist seemed to be mainly concentrated in Afghanistan and not much in Iraq

Nice. Sorry, I didn't catch that.

The Iraq war is a mistake to even start as we are there mainly to make sure that we removed the non existent WMDs and to destroy the bases of the terrorists who weren't stationed over there till we took out Saddam.

He might have been a monster but noticing the chaos that is Iraq today makes you wonder if just maybe being that "asshole" was the only way to keep the peace over there. the man had been in power for over twenty years and it was only a few years ago that it was apparently necessary to remove him from power even though most already had known he was made harmless after the end of the first gulf war back in the early nineties.

Judging by how quickly the actual fighting ended and where we actually found the man suggests he was powerless and we were fighting a man who had nothing to actually use to stand against us.

the war on terror is just like the war on communism that was just an excuse to evade other countries... the war on communism AKA the cold war is the reason why we invaded Korea and Vietnam and lost both of those wars for pretty much the same reasons we are not doing well in Iraq today.

...don't forget the war on drugs.

Anything that kills off people I'm for. :)

All I know is. I'm not signing up for that s**t. u_u

.,:;'`Ghost`';:,.

I hate war.

Wars are bloody... I hate bloody.

Basically that is what happens in a lot of countries, when the colonial powers divided the world they often ignored the people there and when they left they decided this is the border it doesn't matter if there a several different tribes (can't find the right word) and religions within one nation. In a lot of countries one tribe gets the upper hand (usually the richest or the biggest) I could easy lie name a lot of countries where this happened but will only name a few: Israel (Jews and Palestines) India (Muslims and Hinduists in Kashmir) Indonesia (Aceh, New Guinea, Maluku islands) and Sudan (animistic tribes versus muslims in Darfur). And almost no country will willingly give a piece of their country away after the borders have been made no matter if it's a "problematic" province or not. In all honesty it would have been better if the Europeans never left Europe to "conquer and divide" the world. Sure one could argue the Europeans brought civilization to the world but Asia was faring pretty well without Europeans around and I'm sure The America's, Africa and Australia would have managed. The points is any foreign power of another country (for this debate thinking of another tribe within a country as foreign too) will be fought against, often it's every inhabitant against the "oppressor" but now and then it's every tribe against each other and the oppressor.

I'll get to the point (finally) Even though Saddam crossed the line with the oppression of all non-Sunni parties in Iraq, he deemed it necessary to protect the state of Iraq and even though I'm not trying to say that what he did was good I can understand that reasoning from a pure political view (too bad he was a megalomaniac, corrupt bastard who effectively ruined a prosperous country) I can safely say that almost everyone who would run a country with absolute power will try and eradicate powers/tribes that are opposing him (and to some extent everybody will become corrupt). That is the way humanity is, a tribe/person and so on will never give up power when they have it.

Good for you go hug a nuke or something

<3


Ps. No senseless flames about my post please, I'm trying to look at it from a rational point of view

Wars help to solve problems.

How? When? Wars kill they solve no problems whatsoever. They can be resolved in other means.

we compomised with hitler... he took advantage of it
we tried negoiating with Hitler... that failed
we went to war against hitler... we won

WW1 and 2 are the best examples of how war can end problems and create a better world.

but modern warfare is different, the war on terror is ugly, your enemy can hide amongst the innocent, the US as the power to wipe Iraq & afganstan of the face of the earth but its hard to fight an enemy you can't see.

It's like fighting mist and mist is a tricky b*****d to kill.

That is not true in the least bit.

While people such as Shiro Ookami speak the truth it more or less discredits a single war, rather than war as a whole. Unfortunately, war is the ONLY option sometimes due to human nature. Or, some powers will avoid doing what is right for the whole in order to benefit their own nation.

An example of this would be in Ireland during the early 20th century. England refused to grant Ireland even home rule (Meaning this is not even independence, merely allowing Ireland to have their own parliament in Ireland) even though all other white parts of England had this. Why? Because they were afraid colonies in Africa and India would also ask for such things. The only way Ireland was able to achieve home rule and later independence was through two bloody wars, led by Sinn Fein (Or more commonly known as the Irish Republican Army or IRA) greats such as Michael Collins. The war was actually interestingly the first war truly fought with modern day "Terrorism" or Guerrilla Warfare. Ireland, politically, could never have achieved Independence. The war was needed. Unless you want to suggest that Ireland merely should have let themselves fall into another thousand year of British Oppression and fiascoes such as the "Potato Famine" and Cromwell's Irish Genocide. For those who don't understand England's role in the Potato Famine, let me just say that because of things such as the English Corn Laws (Which stated no British Colony could import food from non-British colonies) the Irish were left at the point where after the potato crop was wiped out millions of Irish started to die. On top of this all, Ireland was still exporting food to Mainland Britain.


You see, some issues cannot be resolved peacefully. Should the world just stand there and allow themselves to suffer from injustice? Striking back is at times the only options, for those who would prefer to die than be oppressed.

Explaining why we go to war is like trying to count the number of Atoms it takes to make up the Universe. VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

All I know is that war has solved problems before, and if its for a good cause (Stopping Genocide, Protecting innocent people, Ect.) Then I'm for it.

If people could realize that others exist and deserve respect, maybe then there would be no need for war.

War may be necessary at times, yet the closer mankind gets to perpetual peace, the closer mankind gets to perfection.

Discoordination and unsimilar minds are natural.

Battles are natural.

I'm not sure about war though.

But you can say that in a way, war is natural as well since it's a higher scale version of a fight. Animals of all kinds have fights over power, territory, mates, morals, everything that humans fight for in a different form. No, the human race isn't stupid to those that think that's what I'm saying since I compared them to animals - animals are smart, and humans are too, except dressed up with technology, advanced negotiation, and as most people would say - intelligence.

However, since people have what animals don't have, they expand and gain control of much more destructive ways of having fights with much much much larger populations. The fights grow high scale enough to be called war.

I doubt war will ever stop. Not only will you have to semi kill off opinions and individuality, but people must stop wanting things - not completely, but much more than now.

Either that, or everyone under one powerful system that retrains every single thing whether it's idea or action.

A dictatorship that doesn't fail because the ruler[s] is/are too powerful - which is impossible.

My thoughts on war. I'm not an intellectual, so you can say these are the observations of common sense.