War - Does the End Justify the Means?

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While i respect the opinions of those here who have not been to war or have been in the military being involved will completely change your mind on the subject. Seeing what evil men do to the world with your own eyes and knowing you have the power to do something about it gives you a sense of responsibility to do something about it. Someone will always start a war even if their opponents don't wish for it. If you want peace you should prepare for war.

I believe the end justifies the means if it wasnt for the allies in world war two who knows how long hitlers reign would have lasted without men and women willing to go to war. War ultimately sucks but i'd never regret fighting for what i believe in and stopping oppression to bring peace with a rifle over words.

Jax Styder wrote: While i respect the opinions of those here who have not been to war or have been in the military being involved will completely change your mind on the subject. Seeing what evil men do to the world with your own eyes and knowing you have the power to do something about it gives you a sense of responsibility to do something about it. Someone will always start a war even if their opponents don't wish for it. If you want peace you should prepare for war.

I believe the end justifies the means if it wasnt for the allies in world war two who knows how long hitlers reign would have lasted without men and women willing to go to war. War ultimately sucks but i'd never regret fighting for what i believe in and stopping oppression to bring peace with a rifle over words.

As a fellow veteran, I applaud you for being so open to other viewpoints. My own thoughts on this, which range far beyond the time frame of this thread, are pretty complicated. We (Western society?) often point to World War II as an example of a War that had to happen to protect the World. If every situation and attitude were recreated to the nth detail, I agree, what was done had to be done.

I think that there is a deeper answer though, one that reflects on some answers we have seen in this thread. What if countries like the USA had worked diplomatic solutions earlier with Europe instead of being isolationist? What if every country acted in a way that was for the greater good instead of politically convenient. Of course, this is a purely philosophical question but I think we would find that ultimately war was only an option when it was too late. In that way, World War II was both a failure and a success.

Look at the famines of the Soviet states, many more people died there than in the Holocaust, yet those were the "Good guys" in World War II.

What I mean to say, is that I believe that war was probably the only option because the more difficult diplomatic options were never exercised for political reasons. For that reason, the question is much deeper than previously thought.

I hope this provides some food for thought at the very least.

Glad to hear people consider there are other ways to resolve issues other than violence and slaughter.

So if people did address the fundamental principles, any injustice belonging to any side would be justified to seek recompense.

But eliminating a threat eliminates the fundamental principles driving the force of the dispute along with the threat, and any possibility of owed recompense. Evidently, the true intentions are to eliminate the threat as a means to eliminate the fundamental principles to avoid addressing those fundamental principles. Therefore, the supporters of war may not just be unaware (or unskilled) in the art of diplomacy, there are some war supporters plainly unwilling to commit to diplomacy to avoid scrutiny of the application of those fundamental principles to truth and justice.



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No, i don't think it does. As i see it, are very few situations in which violence is a valid approach, all of them involving defense and only as a last resort. And bombing down foreign countries in preventive wars only blooms more violence and hate. Want to bring peace to middle east? That must be done by education and diplomacy, not by throwing weapons.

Yeah they are called assault rifles for a reason lol. You never hear of assault shields lol.

Maybe that's what should be used in war if defense is so alleged

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Just to clarify, War is part of the Diplomatic process. If a bully/oppressive country/culture wishes to harm another, and someone wishes to intervene there must be some form of intervention. The first stage of that we call Diplomacy, or Peace Talks, or Negotiations.

No Oppressor will even approach the "talking" table unless they are afraid of possible armed conflict. If the threat of possible harm is not apparent,fear of repercussions, why would the "bad guy"/bully bother wasting time at the table? Just for historical background there were negotiation/diplomatic processes going on with both Germany and Japan before World War II, in fact the Japanese Ambassador was waiting to see the President when the attack on Pearl Harbor began.

The negotiating table is only backed by the muscle of the military that the people at the table have and are willing to use if necessary. Here is a silly but serious description of what happened: Hitler was told to stop advancing. He agreed to stop. Then he pressed on, we said no really you need to stop. He said okay my bad I will. Then he advanced again. Hitler did not respect and was not afraid of the military conflict with the people at the negotiating table because he felt they would not use it, and America was way too far away to make much of a difference with his U-Boats. Plus these breaks of peace, help the bad guy build back up his logistics, that means prepare, resupply and stage his ammunition food and fuel for the next expansion of his campaign.

In present day, President Obama told Syria he had a red line with them in negotiations; do not use chemical weapons or there would be consequences; Syria used them, what did the US of A do? Nothing. So, the President's threat of retaliation was hollow. And because of that he lost respect and regardless of how mighty his military might or might not be, he is unwilling to use it in a way that will encourage a stop in hostilities.

As Entropist mentioned above, we further breakdown the negotiating process. Too many Ambassador positions are given away as rewards for campaign contributions, not for experience in negotiating, and they have no skill in how to negotiate. Most Ambassadors are clueless as to the fundamental principles that are causing the conflict to begin with.

The media does not know what "assault rifle" means. An AR15, the rifle claimed to be the most popular in America,the one that civilians can purchase are NOT assault rifles. The AR stands for ArmaLite, the company that makes that rifle. They are not fully automatic, meaning one pull of trigger fires continuously until released, like a machine gun, designed for suppressive fire, they fire one bullet for each pull of the trigger. The media likes to hype this stuff up. A semi automatic rifle is as much an assault weapon to a bolt action rifle, as a semi automatic pistol is an assault handgun to that of the revolver.

Education in "Middle East" is not easy. The culture does not allow women to have an education. With a culture like that it is very difficult to "educate". We built many schools and hospitals and they were torn down, blown up or used to store weapons because it makes good media attention when "we" blow up a school or hospital.

It will take more than one generation to change the mindset of a culture. There is no easy, "quick" fix to the solution.

if i want your lunch, all i have to do is beat your ass and take it

"diplomacy" means you give me your lunch before i beat your a$$

you be diplomatic

i will be fed

if i have failed as a thinking animal, so what?

i succeed as an eating animal, and thats much much more important

also if you have a girlfriend, i will beat your a$$ and take her from you

if she argues with me, i will beat her a$$ too!

therefore i also succeed as a breeding animal

and you dont

which means i win

this is how it works: i can beat your a$$

that means that i dont have to be "diplomatic"

YOU have to be diplomatic - which in this case means that i eat your food and *** your girl and every now and then i will beat your a$$ just because i dont like you and i think its funny

and your role is to stfu and give me what i want, and from time to time, take whatever unpleasantries i decide to give you

now, tell me what you you THINK of that lol

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i know someone is going to be all bent out of shape over what i said up there

so

there are, and always have been, and probably will always be, people who see the world in those terms

such people exist, and thats exactly how they will treat you

and you do yourself no favors by ignoring the reality that fact

for my part, explaining the reality of something, in as convincing a way as possible, is not the same thing as endorsing that reality

what i want to endorese is the understanding that there needs to be a barrier between the above mindset and the common person

Evidently the skill of warriors is the questionable to the training, which demonstrates need for Kong Zi's quote of why a weapon should never be given to someone who doesn't know or understand peace.

Further to that, violent people who prefer violence and slaughter to solve problems, are better locked in a room to sort out their issues. That's what they want. Then the rest of civilisation can progress without detriment of violent people

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Entropist wrote: Further to that, violent people who prefer violence and slaughter to solve problems, are better locked in a room to sort out their issues. That's what they want. Then the rest of civilisation can progress without detriment of violent people

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how do you expect to get them into the room?

and why on earth do you assume they would WANT to go?

of course they dont WANT to go into some "room" to "sort out their issues"