Intelligent Discussion: Is War Ever Justifiable?

yes or no? and why?

Yes it is. I do believe that war is not right but there will always be bad people in the world. If it wasn't for war, there would be no United States. If it weren't for war, the depression would have gone on longer. if it wasn't for war hitler would have killed more people and so on. Basically war for no reason is wrong but when there is a good purpose i believe it is okay.

Yeah, like they say: fighting for peace is like having sex for virginity!

I agree with Mike to some extent. Some wars i believe had to be fought, the wars against Nazi Germany as one obvious example. The current conflicts in Iraq, and more recently focussed in Iran, are not wars, but invasions, because only one army is fighting.

But force of any kind is useful if used in the correct way and with great understanding of the consequences. It's the same with one to one violence...as a rule i'm a pacifist if left to my own devices...but if someone threatens me or someone i care about...hell even someone in the street...then i'd use force to stop that and feel justified.

"Yes it is. I do believe that war is not right but there will always be bad people in the world. If it wasn't for war, there would be no United States. If it weren't for war, the depression would have gone on longer. if it wasn't for war hitler would have killed more people and so on. Basically war for no reason is wrong but when there is a good purpose i believe it is okay."

There are some very (funny or) valid points there, but first let me say wars are alwyas justified in the minds of the fighters: leaving conscripts aside, who has fought a war without feeling they were doing th right thing? So, wars may not be justifiable, but they are justified nonetheless.

As to lisa marie's comment... HAHA! The USA was born out of belligerence, indeed and that is why the US as such is considered by many an accident which should have never occurred.

As to the other economic point, yes! The US has resorted to war in order to strive. I remember a teacer telling me: a definition of "American" is "a citizen of the country that enters world wars late in order to win them." What is more important, since Antitam, nothing other than war has helped the US economy boom as it has. When there was no war, government officials still called it a (Cold) War. In short, the US is historically a belligerent country that interferes in other countries' matters simply to assert its hegemony.

Insofar as I am concerned, no war can be justified and that is because no form of violence should be justifiable. Humankind is a social animal, not a violent one.

There is my bit of anti-US politics for the day.

Should it be...

It's our basic instinct to fight with each other on many terms, which has spanned since the first murder of Abel and Cain.

War is in our blood, and will never be justified, because of the stupidity that comes with it.

Ok!

Sayonara...

If it were my choice there would be no war. On the other hand some times it's the only option. This is just another useless debate. People get too fired up about this...

I don't think war is in our blood, I know you meant that metaphorically Ismail, but it's a generalisation that has no basis in logic i feel.

People learn violence, and warfare...people even learn to be agressive...none of these things are natural...there are peoples in this world to whom war is an alien concept as is your idea of conflict between people, and on a larger scale, countries, being due in part our basic instincts.

War is nothing but politics, it always has been..and there is nothing natural about modern politics.

I disagree, Kevin (only as the devil's advocate though). Aggression is a natural part of the body's defensive network. Without agression, curiosity, fear and comfort we would not have got anywhere as a species from the get go. It's an inheirently primal thing. I'm sure the kids who hit and kick and bite other kids at nursery have had little in the way of tuition at aggression 101. But onto the question at hand...

War is not only justifiable, but necessary.

War is never aggressive in the first instance, but will nearly always become so as an after thought. Wars start by an attack, one side attacking another. It does not become a war until the other side defends itself.

Modern politics has little to do with the act of war. A piece of paper, a bill of declaration has little to do with the act of aggression. You want to survive you fight, simple as that.

War becomes aggressive (AND justifiable) after the defensive stance has fended off the enemy to a point where you can strike back. Only once has this not happened where a defending force did not follow an attack thoroughly to annihilate the opposition and that was in the Gulf War of '91.

Look where that got us.

As a side point it's the prime way of strengthening the species and limiting the numbers. You'll notice that after half a century of controlled warfare it was decided that surgical strikes and smaller scale battles were considered more humane. Well, in that time the world's population has increased from 2,556,000,053 in 1950 (mid) to 6,082,966,429 in 2000 (mid) an increase of 3,526,966,376 (more than three and a half BILLION people) in just fifty years.

Admittedly that's not just from war, that's also (just a few examples) better medicine, longer average lifespan and social change, acceptance of the weak and right to life for all; not the survival of the fittest premise that used to keep our species strong.

The next pseudo-conventional world war will set things on a path to normailty. I say pseudo-conventional because in 25-30 years (most likely sooner) the Chinese will probably not start with conventional methods, but attack every US strategic and non-military target on day one of WWIII with ICBMs (most major American cities) before moving on a spent force with conventional tactics.

(( stats and info from: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762181.html
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/8/14/174213.shtml ))

violence is natural. look at nature.

What disgusting creatures we are....

Come on Ismail, don't lose hope, i mean...i don't know how it is for you when you look in the mirrow....but when i do..man, all i see is how great the world is : )

Nature does not equate a logical understanding of human behaviour, because we are not part of nature anymore in the same way as animals that must kill other animals in an agressive way are. And so looking to the violence of creatures as evidence of our own natural natures is inapropriate i feel.

Also, Bret, as always raised an interesting point. Humans have physiological reactions that seem linked to fear and agression as in the fight or flight reaction.

This does not mean that violence and agression are natural to us, only that getting excited, or reacting to these thing comes naturally to most mammals.

You can be taught to fear and hate almost anything, if that is the case, how can it be natural?

Come on Ismail, don't lose hope, i mean...i don't know how it is for you when you look in the mirrow....but when i do..man, all i see is how great the world is :)"

And tell me Kevin, how does a ugly person see themself in a mirror. Won't it crack...Lol

no no that's everyone's problem. they separate themselves from nature. we are too part of nature because we depend on it, just like everything depends on everything else in this world. we are all connected whether you want to believe it or not.

Justice is the scale that weighs the dark against light
Speak not of justice lest the keeper of the scales be in sight

No.

We should all be happy and live in a utopia.

I mean; Why fight when all you have to do is be considerate and have nice discussion and comprimise.

There is no need for war when you have a brain.

Without war we would not be the society we are today.

War is when you can identify your targets though.

These days there hidden...

Beyond....

wow that was poetic and I agree :o)

It's our natures that justify war, and that's why it will always be around. There is always something worth fighting for. Some have the power to make their problems the problems of others, and of their families when they come home in body bags.

War has always existed, and it will always continue to exist, that is, unless human nature changes.

The most important inventions we use today come from a time of war.

Yes war is justifiable because tyrants in countries like Iraq would have continued their tyranny for longer periods and crap, bad people never go away and they will always manage to make it in higher levels of government

And historical fact: "if it wasn't for war hitler would have killed more people and so on." If it weren't for the Franco-Prussian war there would be no Germany, if it weren't for WWI Germany would not have had such a terrible time because of the treaty of Versailles (spl?) and if they did not have such periods of depression Hitler would not have come to power, ever war is a catalyst for greater darker wars, but war is necassary to keep human population under control and ensure democracy

A better question is: Is Killing Civilians during war justiiable. Now, I'm gonna get a little personal in here and might be disrespectful to some. I DO APPOLOGIZE ABOUT BEING DISRESPECTFUL IF I AM TO SOME OF YOU.

we had a presentaion today about some political aspect, and this picture *eyes start to water* of a little girl sitting down and smiling to the camera, god knows when she'll smile like that again, made me realise how pathetic I am.

this little girl, no more than 10 years old, smiling, holding a book, learning to live under such a cruel world, and survives, makes my heart cry.

and I'm complaining about one damn customer yelling at me. I, the 20 year old emotionless person, have cried like a baby, and not once, not twice, but multiple times. and now I smile. becuas ethat little girl, has just inspired me to look at things more perpectivly.

I have a home, a roof on top of my head, an interenet and a laptop, I travel whenever I want, a decent job. heck, I've got back at home my own cell phone and should things look good, my own car.
and this girl, all she has, is... nothing, yet she survives. ok, I'm going to start crying again. kids at that place get killed and tortured, ambulances can't reach there. and people are complaining about insignificant BS, it's weird, and at the same time, hilarious, at how much people on here and where I am, would complain day on and day in "oh, my life sucks so badly, I'm gonna kill myself"

if you really wanna and live in hell, then you should have listened to the stories and the vedios I have seen today, heck, I still don't believe it, picture wise, story wise, digital camera vedio, something that in not edited or played with. it's horrendous, and yet, that girl survives in this hell on Earth.

her brother is shot in front of her in both legs, her house is demolished, she has nothing on but the clothes she wears. her mom is dead becuase she crossed the wrong road. and so on and so forth, and she survived all that and is learning from schools put on streets. how can a human being survive all that, takes tremendous strength. I bow in disgrace at my own insignificant blabbering. I mean, worse case secnario that'll ever happen to me, is not even a nano over infinity of what that girl goes through.

so that's why I smiled today, Kudos to that girl, heck, Kudos to all her kind, that have stood up, in the ruble of war and discrimination and barbarians like the ones she had witnessed, and shame on myself for being the pathetic little twit and a wimp. it changed me. it truly did. man I'm crying again, and it's hard on my heart. I still can't believe the pictures.

12 year olds shot on their leg for throwing a snow ball on the wrong person, rugged roads, your house can be demolished at any time. you can't even drink water becuase your enemy dumped dead chiken in the water source that you are allowed to drink from.

and imagine the follwoing, I swear to you, on the holy quran, I'm not exagorating the follwoing, at least that's what our professor told us. Red Cross, organization, you are all familier with it. they went to save this lady who had a heart attack, guess what happened to the ambulance crew. they were stripped naked, thier clothes were on a hill top and they had to crawl all the way to that hill, imagine this. it took them 5 hours, the woman died. it's horrendous, and then think about the worst thing that ever happened to you, I don't think you're close to either what the 10 year old, girl experienced or the woman who died.

What does the above blabbering has to do with war? the story above, is basically what happened in a war... a war that is still going on till now.

Is War Justifiable?

Elaborate on what war exactly, becuase you can spam from it a lot of different things. like civil war, war resulting in occupation, religious war, etc...

so specify on which War do you mean?

I can assume you are talking about War as in military war (thus is includes war resulting in occupation, and war resulting in freedom).

it all depends on the cause of the war, If we take for instance the 6th of October 1973 Egyptian victory on Isreal, you have to see it from two perpective, the Israelian and the Egyptian.

Egypt took back Sina from this war, which was the egyptians, so that justifies the war. but now if you think about from the Israelian point of view, it is not justifiable that they took back their land (they and their are toward Egyptians)

and so on and so forth, if could be justifiable from one point of few and riduclous from another. so that's why I say it depends on the situation and the circumstances that lead to this War