Remembrance Day

yes, let us all remember that wars are not cool, they never go well, and that we must never take part in them unless it is <I>absolutely necessary</I>.<p>---<br>"George Bush has declared the war on terrorism to be the cause of his generation. The cause of Canadian sovereignty will be ours." - John Godfrey, MP for Don Va

Our veterans are the ULTIMATE! But yes, they too, denounce war.

---
Dave Ruston

At the same time, let us remember that there is such a thing as just war, and unjust peace.

The real quotation is:

"An unjust peace is better than a just war."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero

War is only "just" to those who live happily on the sacrifices of others.

The citizens of Carthage would probably disagree with Cicero.

Holocaust victims would probably disagree with Cicero.

The people who lived in Srebrenica would probably disagree with Cicero.

About 70,000 Sudanese would probably disagree with Cicero.

Countless others that are no longer heard from would probably disagree with Cicero.

Because they're all dead.

I think the millions of dead Indians would agree that there is a difference between war and massacre.

I'm no philospher, but this conundrum Cicero presents seems to have one solution: war is only worth being waged when massive bloodshed is already occuring. After all, just how "unjust" must a peace get before a "just" war can be considered to be worthwhile? Waging peace has always proven to be less costly than waging war.

I wouldn't call any of the instances you cite above as being "peaceful" in the first place, but I find it interesting you didn't bother to include Saddam-era Iraq in your list after you said "...there is such a thing as a just war and unjust peace." A war in which I entirely disagree with being "just".

This discussion brings another question to mind: when was the last "Just" war?

Whose worse -- Saddam or Bush?

Saddam took 30 years to kill 1 million Iraqis.
Bush took 1.5 years to kill 100,000 Iraqis, and rising.

If Saddam is an example of injustice in the world, than I would equally propose Bush as a similar example -- he just hasn't had the time to develop the same kind of numbers. Who, though, is willing to stand up and fight this "unjust peace"? The biggest problem I see guiding the pacificist -- warmonger debate at this point is the lack of judgement on acceptable deployment of war machines. The Americans attack anybody that challenges them, or simply disagrees. These wars are wrong. We have a situation in Darfur brewing, just as we had a situation in Rwanda. Intervention is obvious, but where's the "grave and rising danger" here? How can we even begin to have a real discussion of pacificism when the wars being fought are still colonialist/imperialist rather than interventionist and humanitarian? The "good wars" aren't being fought. The "unjust peace" is ignored in favour of colonial expansion. Bravo for Canada for resisting the American empire's game, but where are our troops in Sudan?

If we want to value our veterans, let us make our engagement with war of impeccable moral quality BEFORE risking their health and lives.

Sincerely,
G

66 death certificates extrapolated out to '100,000' dead - and 'pacifists' eat this stuff up, they'll buy anything apparently.

Saddam was a murderous thug to his own people, attacked his neighbours and supported terrorists with large sums of cash, and this makes him a darling of left-wing 'pacifists' in the West - his sons dragged women off the street in order to rape them, but stuff like that must be acceptable to Western 'pacifists' if it's only happening to 'those' people.

To top it off, 'pacifists' think the US should be invading more countries instead of using other means to promote democracy and human rights, unbelievable.

Saddam was a US asset, he was backed by the US, the US sold arms to him, the US sold poisonous gas to him, the US sold chemical weapons to him, the US gave him a list of people to exterminate, it just goes on and on. Learn some history before you vomit your bile all over our webpages Anonymouth.

Anonymous, your figures are way off base. 66 dead? Even the US government has estimated that the number of civilian dead in the inital takeover numbered over 3,000. With the battles in Fallugia, Sadr City and Najaf the US estimates went up by about 1,000 in each. The estimates of 100,000 are probably a bit excessive, and the US estimates low, so even if you cut the difference in the US favour you still have more than 10,000 dead civilians.

And though it pains me, Milton is quite right in that the US provided weapons, financing and means to Saddam for protracted periods of time, predominantly during the Iran/Iraq war. During the late 80's and 90's it was mostly the French and Russians that provided the arms and money however as Saddam fell out of favour due to his anti-Israeli stance and the strength of that movement in the US.

Saddam was a thug and he should have been removed. However if the US had done things properly they would and should have properly supported the Shiite and Kurdish uprisings after Gulf War 1. Properly backing those would have been just as effective in establishing a democratic state. Due to their ineptitude, the US did nothing but let those people die, setting up the distrust in their intent that exists today.

But back to the "just war" discussion earlier, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Hati, Somalia, are all humanitarian causes that call either for some sort of intervention peacekeeping force or a more traditional peace making force (especially Sudan). I think we all agree on this (but I could be wrong). I was curious as to when the intervention is justified in your minds - is it a threshold of number of dead over a specific time, is it brought on by violent death or is starving your people sufficient, or is it more due to the intent of the government or ruling class of the afflicted area?

Actually, 'pacificits' believe the US was wrong to have invented Saddam Hussein in the first place. Pacifists believe their meddling in unjust causes motivated only by self-interest -- by funding and supplying weapons of mass destruction to thugs like Hussein -- hurts the world. They have done this too often. They create temporary puppets who eventually turn on them. They go to war -- in the name of "justice" -- to take out a problem they started. It doesn't matter whether the system they replace is more brutal than the one they topple, just so long as it serves their interest in the region.

This is cold-blooded, cynical politics at its very worst.

I would also like to remind you that after the first Bush war, back in 91, Saddam Hussein did not invade anybody. Who have the Americans invaded or bombed in that time? How many nations? How many tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands dead? You want to talk about "appeasement" then lets start talking about all the warmongers willing to turn their backs on American crimes of aggression and empire. Why don't warmongers like to talk about Abu Gharaib, Guantanamo or any number of tragedy and farce of the American war machine.

The example of Rwanda and Sudan are only brought up to show how pathetic is their attempt to claim integrity behind their catastrophic military violence. If you read the transcripts, the Americans were a major reason the UN didn't get involved. Because, just like it took them years and years to realize that Adolf Hitler was in fact evil (all those weapons-manufacturing profits start to blur your moral vision), they couldn't see the point of risking their own for something that wouldn't profit them directly. If the world had any integrity it would disarm the Americans.

Maybe you should read a little history about the mid-east, and you don't have to go that far back. Iran took Americans hostage in 1979 and held them for 444 days, the US did not have the power to attack Iran or get the hostages out but luckily they were released in 1980. Iraqi leader Saddam didn't like Iran very much and attacked them, good enough for the US and the West because it kept the Iranians busy, there was no political will for the West to sort out Iran or Iraq anyhow.

That's not a morally perfect history, but, even though you look up to the Americans as all-powerful as though they were god-like, the fact is they can't fix everything however much you wish they were 'World Police'.

As Kissinger said 'he may be a bastard, but he's our bastard' - he knows that that is an unfortunate reality but until we can give the Americans all the support they can possibly muster, they won't be able to realize your dream of being the world's cops.

I am sooooo hung over.


---
"If you must kill a man, it costs you nothing to be polite about it." Winston Churchill