Would war be better?

[Sam Samson 0]

"We have no time to recover from one blow, and then comes

another one, stronger. It's better to have a war. Better

war than a drop here, a drop there. Better for them, too.

What we have now is worse."

-TIPPY ANKARI, at the funeral of two Israeli boys killed in Kenya.

is an all-out war better than the alternative low-simmering conflict some peoples endure with terrorist threats, culminating regularly in the death of innocents?

war - the gargantuan struggle between tribes, peoples, nations, ideas, religions, ideologies... over territories, resources, preeminence and the souls of men.

when do you think a war is justified? (or is it ever? )

[Harnu 0]

War is never justified, but it's always justified. I know it may not sound right, but in my head it makes sense, anyone else catch me?

[FSPilot 0]

War is always justified to the people who start the war.

War is only justified when it protects people, IMO. But that can be a lot of things.

[bn880 5]

That is war... only it's a new kind of war. (even Dubya agrees about this new war stuff)

[Harnu 0]

It's definately a type of warfare. Since these groups are undermanned as is so they can't really fight a war, so they decide to kill themselves off 1 by 1. Another 6 months and 1/16 of the terrorists are gone

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sam Samson @ Dec. 03 2002,23:54)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">when do you think a war is justified? (or is it ever? )<span id='postcolor'>

If the sum of the bad that comes from a war is less then the sum of the bad without a war.

Of course it is very difficult to tell that beforehand... Also your definition of 'bad' may vary..

[bn880 5]

Isn't the real problem these days finding out who to have war with, and for what objectives? Sam, who would take part in this war against what entity?(referring back to the funeral) What would the objectives be, what would classify as success and failure?

Would understanding or withdrawl from opression be better than war? Would it not be better to address the roots of the conflict, other than declaring a whole nation or way of life as the problem?

[Renagade 0]

Drop an atom bomb on both of them

[Balschoiw 0]

Give the palestinians their own state. They were driven off their land by Israel for a seddlement policy that only can be described as "Anti human". Give them back their roots, the ability to live and the ability to have a future.

[USMC Sniper 0]

I don't like the way Israel is treating Palestinians, and vice versa. In the bible, it always talks about peace, respect for your neighbor, etc. It says how killing, violence, etc, are bad. Now if my memory serves correctly, the Israelites invaded a land called Canaan and killed everybody there, just so they could live there themselves. This practically contradicts everything taught in the bible!

*Remembers the gigantic "god" topic.*

Ah, the good old times.

[Lazarus_Long 0]

This is an interesting topic - the philosophy of war.  

As long as this thread manages to stay on topic (war in general) and not turn into another endless mid-east thread, it would be a really interesting debate.

Perhaps we like the idea of war so much because its the simplest way to solve a dispute.  Logically, if you killl or whip everyone you have a problem with into submission, your problems will end... Didn't Stalin say something like that?  The obvious fallacy in that line of thinking is the fact that war causes more new problems than it was originally trying to solve in the first place.  

So my opinion?  War is never justfied and should only be practiced in self defense under strict ethical guidelines, or simulated in cool games such as OFP.

[Grey Fox 0]

"Ask not what men think of war, said the Judge. War endures. As well ask

men what they think of stone. Before man was, war waited for him. The

ultimate trade awaiting the ultimate practitioner."

– Cormac McCarthy

[Sam Samson 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Harnu @ Dec. 04 2002,00:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">War is never justified, but it's always justified. I know it may not sound right, but in my head it makes sense, anyone else catch me?<span id='postcolor'>

greyfox: that would be "oppresso" with two p.  

you mean to say that a war is always started by somebody driven by base motives, who later puts a positive spin on the show by claiming a noble cause.

sort of like the pharisees who delivered Jesus over to the romans claiming they were trying to keep the faith pure from the supposed soilings of the heretic from galilee, while even pilate could see that they were merely jealous of him.

...wars are started by people with blind spots?

[Sam Samson 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (USMC Sniper @ Dec. 04 2002,04:38)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I don't like the way Israel is treating Palestinians, and vice versa. In the bible, it always talks about peace, respect for your neighbor, etc. It says how killing, violence, etc, are bad. Now if my memory serves correctly, the Israelites invaded a land called Canaan and killed everybody there, just so they could live there themselves. This practically contradicts  everything taught in the bible!

*Remembers the gigantic "god" topic.*

Ah, the good old times.  <span id='postcolor'>

something went wrong with that post-edit up there...

if you think that, you're obviously drawing conclusions from only a limited set of concepts. (I'm not saying you're stupid. )

one of the concepts which all but disappeared in the west is that of personal sin. in the east - especially in wahhabi-islam - the concept survives, albeit in a perverted form.

it says that sin, even when committed by the high and mighty, will be judged sooner or later by God, unless you turn to God and make amends.

take canaan: God looked at i.e the deeds of the people of amalek for more than 800 years, before he finally told king saul to make war on them.

if you study history you will find that the amalekites were aggressive, wicked, evil, mean and nasty - to the point of burning their own children for their gods.

God told abraham in 1800 bc that he couldn't have the land of canaan yet, "because the measure of sin of those people is not yet full." (genesis 15, 16)

roughly 800 years later the prophet samuel - one of the most powerful types in the bible - tells agag king of amalek: "as your sword made women childless, your mother will go childless among women." (1 samuel 15, 33) then he killed him.

yes, God is a redeemer, but he is a warrior too. (jahwe sabaoth)

he doesn't like it, but he will make war if he has to. (just read revelations 19)

about joshua's conquest: he actually proposed peace to all those cities and nations, but they rejected him and attacked.

peace just wasn't in them.

...this is not to be construed that I'm for the annililation of the palestinian people, so don't blackball me!

that's ludicrous. I want peace down there as much as the next guy.

[mr. Duck 0]

Well spoken (amen), but there will always be war as long as long as humanity exist (or until that dude comes back), anyway', I'm going too offtopic here (I think).

Back to the main question:

It is perhaps better to have a fullgrown war than a drop here and there. At least one generation can grow up in peace.

[Balschoiw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">At least one generation can grow up in peace.

<span id='postcolor'>

The one being killed during collateral dammage or the one that wake up screaming every night and jump under tables whenever they hear an aeroplane? My girlfriend works in a kindergarden and she has/had several kids from Yugoslavia that came as refugees to germany. Although they were only one or two years old when the war took place they are traumatized till now.

War is no solution. Talkings and international community can be but not war. You can´t calm a conflict like the Israeli-Palestinian one with a war. Have a look at Chechnia. There you have a generation of kids that grow up under permant war condition and think it´s a normal way of life. They are totally surprised when they hear that there are countries where kids grow up very different.

I am very thankfull that I dont have to live in a warzone as I am always happy when we set sails home after a mission. The problem with the locals is, that they cant go home. Their homes are bombed permanently, they are shot when they go out on the streets....

I was very impressed when I´ve watched a report on a female reporter that used to report about the Chechnia / Russia conflict for several years. They showed a scene, where she went on a russian BTRM that drove over a mine. The cam was shacking and she dropped of the tank. Next scene was when they pulled the screaming driver out, that had no legs left. She just kept the cam running and called her station. And they told her that she had made a great shot for the news. That was the moment she decided to stop her career in TV. Not for the risk, but for the immerse cruelty of the war. She now lives in Grosny among all the other locals there, with no water, bombs, rockets, firing and all that war things that happen. She teaches kids there and tries to bring some normality back to people that are fully traumatized. It was very impressive to see that she gave it all up for the kids and daily risks her life within Grosny.

People like her are the real heros, not the ones in the Migs, or the ones in the woods, or the ones mining the roads.

[bn880 5]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Balschoiw @ Dec. 04 2002,22:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I was very impressed when I´ve watched a report on a female reporter that used to report about the Chechnia / Russia conflict for several years. They showed a scene, where she went on a russian BTRM that drove over a mine. The cam was shacking and she dropped of the tank. Next scene was when they pulled the screaming driver out, that had no legs left. She just kept the cam running and called her station. And they told her that she had made a great shot for the news. That was the moment she decided to stop her career in TV. Not for the risk, but for the immerse cruelty of the war. She now lives in Grosny among all the other locals there, with no water, bombs, rockets, firing and all that war things that happen. She teaches kids there and tries to bring some normality back to people that are fully traumatized. It was very impressive to see that she gave it all up for the kids and daily risks her life within Grosny.

People like her are the real heros, not the ones in the Migs, or the ones in the woods, or the ones mining the roads.<span id='postcolor'>

Wow,

damn, I have tears in my eyes.

Unbelievable that a "moment" like that can change a person so much... that is a huge step to take.

Just thinking about events like that makes me extremely sad and frustrated about what's going on around the world, every day.

I keep it all bottled up inside of me (no choice), all the anger and frustration with these endless battles.

[brgnorway 0]

I have to say I find some of the contributions on this thread rather disturbing. To even believe that the right thing to do is to wage full scale war sounds fascist to me. The only result of such an action is that it proves that one of the fighting parties is stronger than the other. To win is not synonymous with being moraly right. The other side of the story is that it is very naive to believe hostilities will end because someone won militarily. Do you realy believe the losing part will peacefully accept the defeat and continue on with their life as if nothing ever happened?

[Sam Samson 0]

while everybody should favor peace in the first place, of course, I don't think an all out war is always wrong.

to answer your question: yes.

remember lucius clay and germany?

or doug mcarthur and japan?

those two nations - behind the US - went on to become the economic powerhouses of the world. - definitely a better use of their energies than their former warmongering.

[brgnorway 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Sam Samson @ Dec. 05 2002,16:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">while everybody should favor peace in the first place, of course, I don't think an all out war is always wrong.

to answer your question: yes.

remember lucius clay and germany?

or doug mcarthur and japan?

those two nations - behind the US - went on to become the economic powerhouses of the world. - definitely a better use of their energies than their former warmongering.<span id='postcolor'>

hmm....I'll admit you are right about the examples you presented. However, I also believe times have changed a bit since then. Maybe I'm generalizing too much but I cannot believe this would ever happen in Palestine/Israel or Chechnia for that matter. Part of the problem is that political violence today do not nessecarily take the form of all out war because it is ineffective when trying to suppress an entire population. Yes, I do believe it's possible to beat an army - but not a people. Lessons learned in Afghanistan by the soviets (or Chechnya) and Vietnam and the americans are evidence of that. Military weapons are easily accesible today, and the local population also have a much better knowlegde of terrain and thus represent a better tactial advantage. I can't imagine Norway ever being conquered by a foreign power and people accepting it (even if Denoir would like that very much )

Just my thoughts of course!

[mr. Duck 0]

I just answered a question, I mean, of course peace is better than war. But that was not the question was it?

[Akira 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Balschoiw @ Dec. 04 2002,03:35)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Give the palestinians their own state. They were driven off their land by Israel for a seddlement policy that only can be described as "Anti human". Give them back their roots, the ability to live and the ability to have a future.<span id='postcolor'>

Couldn't let this one go...

If you are talking about the recreation of the Jewish state...then let us all remember the Jews originate there. They lived there in Biblical and hell PRE-Biblical times. They were driven out long ago by Arabs and Muslims (and my god before someone says something that is NOT anti-muslim) which can only be described as "anti-Jewish". They only reclaimed what is theirs from pre-history. The Jews are the ones that deserve to have their "roots" back. The Muslims conquered this area remember.

If you are talking about the so called "occupied" territories like the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, let us ALSO remember that Isreal was suddenly and without warning attacked by some 6 Arab states bent one sole mission, the destruction and eradication of Isreal. Why? Because it was a Jewish state. That seems pretty "anti-human" to me as well.

The fact that Isreal soundly whooped all their combined asses is of little consequence. In the process of pushing the invaders out and deep into their own territory, the attacking Arab nations went whimpering to the international community which forced a cease fire. Don't attack if you can't take the consequences.

The fact that the Arab nations brought this on themselves, in a history that goes long before written times, seems to be lost on many.

[Balschoiw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Jews originate there. They lived there in Biblical and hell PRE-Biblical times.<span id='postcolor'>

So did the palestinians. You know if I check my family tree I can see a long history based in Italy. But that does not give me the right to invade Italy, does it ?

It would be the same if the original US inhabitants drive of all the non US based people of the country. Bad luck... it happened the other way round. So that is not really a factor when it comes to the palestinian question, as palestina has it ancient routes, holy monuments within Israeli territory. I don´t say Israel should give back that parts, but I do say that palestinians need a state. They need to have their own soil. They need to have stability. And at least they need to have an option to live their lives. That is not the present state. And if you talk about military incidents dont forget what Israel was about with the Suez canal.

[foxer 0]

i think this thread should be lock.We already have a thread like this,it's called Mid east.

[Akira 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Balschoiw @ Dec. 05 2002,21:36)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Jews originate there. They lived there in Biblical and hell PRE-Biblical times.<span id='postcolor'>

So did the palestinians. You know if I check my family tree I can see a long history based in Italy. But that does not give me the right to invade Italy, does it ?

It would be the same if the original US inhabitants drive of all the non US based people of the country. Bad luck... it happened the other way round. So that is not really a factor when it comes to the palestinian question, as palestina has it ancient routes, holy monuments within Israeli territory. I don´t say Israel should give back that parts, but I do say that palestinians need a state. They need to have their own soil. They need to have stability. And at least they need to have an option to live their lives. That is not the present state. And if you talk about military incidents dont forget what Israel was about with the Suez canal.<span id='postcolor'>

The difference there is you weren't KICKED out of Italy. And all major religions have holy sites in what is now present day Isreal...should we just divide Isreal up into different religious states? (I digress but I always thought Jeruselum needed to be taken from everyone and turned into a kind of "religious free-city" goverened and patroled by the UN.)

I believe Isreal has a right to exist. But I also agree that the Palestinian people need an identity whether it be national or not.

And the only reason I brought up the Six Days War ( I think it was) was because that is the root of the "occupied" territories problem.