[TC2]

It's attitudes like that which made me vote to have Democrats in office over republicans.  Nothing justifies the use of weapons which can destroy millions of lives in a heartbeat, there are probably tons of good people in Afghanistan living a simple and peaceful life.

What goes around comes around, we've been lucky so far that a country hasn't decided to use a nuke on us, but if we were to dare use nukes again far worse things than 9-11 would happen.  I saw what happened that day, I was present, and even though I am disgusted by what those terrorists did that is not a green flag to go marching into another country to use a weapon that can wipe out families in an instant.

The United States is not the global law maker or enforcer, we like to think so but countries are going to rule themselves with or without the United States.  I don't go over to my neighbors house and tell him how to run his house, how to mow his lawn, how to do this and that, likewise I don't expect him to do it to me.  The world runs on the same principal except we trade with each other and support each other with finances at times.

We've got to learn how to live with each other, sure we'll always have those neighbors we won't like, but that's no reason to go over to their house and murder them senseless.  Quite frankly, there's bigger problems to be worried about like Global warming and our reliance on oil, and the last thing we need is an itchy trigger finger to make matters worse.

[Yaponvezos]

The only thing that keeps the peace is fear.  The world ought to fear us more – the United States ought to be acting more like an empire and less like a big Switzerland.  I honestly have no idea why there are still inmates at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay.  It's been years, and every single one of them ought to have been released or hanged by now.

Seriously, I could use a myriad of arguments against what you 're saying in your last post but that middle paragraph forces me to insist on one point. If that's truly what you think, you obviously need to study the history of humanity a lot more carefully for this conversation to go anywhere.

I hope we can get back on topic now.

[egad]

Wow, some much to respond to in this thread. 

First, the better jaw-jaw than war-war quote.  I'm not going to argue that diplomacy is better than war was what Churchill meant.  However you also have to remember that Churchill could recognize when diplomacy was not an option.  The best example of this is Churchill's criticism of the appeasement of Hitler and called on Britain to improve its military.

Also, it seems like the argument is being made that a blatant act of war, 9-11, which followed many other blatant acts of war the first World Trade Center bombing, attacks on the USS Cole, etc. does not justify war.  Especially as inocent people will die with the non innocent as always occurs in war.  Now let me be clear, an act of war does justify war.

Iran getting nuclear weapons is a problem, as Almadenajad or whatever has clearly stated that he wants to see Israel wiped off the map.  He has recently tested missiles with the capability of launching a nuclear warhead into Israel.  The problem is real, and Iran can not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. 

Also, while it may not be the only thing that keeps the peace, fear does play a significant role.  The history of humanity clearly shows this, as well as the present.  Examples of fear keeping the peace can be clearly seen in the repressive dictatorships of Africa, or even under the reign of the now defunct Saddam Hussien.
  Pax Romana was based upon fear of their legions.  Gengis Khan's empire was based upon fear of his hordes.  Fear is what kept order within their span of influence.  The idea that men can live together has to involve two men that believe in that idea to work.  The problem with the leftist train of thought concerning foreign policy is that it is based on the assumption that everyone thinks like they do.  This is not the case, and fear of consequences and reprisals are necessary to keep these other people in line.

[stmercy2020]

First, before anyone accuses me of being weak-kneed or lily livered, allow me to point out that I teach karate and self-defense.  My attitudes towards violence, at least on a personal level, if not a global level, are informed by personal knowledge.  With that in mind, I subscribe to the theory that suggests that it is far better to talk than to fight.  Words may hurt your feelings, but they are unlikely to cause irreparable damage.  If words don't work, it may be time to reevaluate your position- how important is what you are fighting about to you, personally?  Are you willing to be injured or maimed or killed over your issue?  Are you willing to do the same thing to someone else?

In the case of 9/11, I think it would be hard to find a single American citizen who wasn't outraged and who didn't, at least momentarily, feel similarly to Lingster.  There's a saying which gets bandied about quite a bit-"kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"-which pretty much described the frustration felt by probably a majority of the American public immediately following 9/11.  The problem then, as now, is that we were attacked by terrorists, and not by an entire nation-at-war.  We didn't have a clear target, and, if we're honest with ourselves, we still don't.  I personally find it unbelievable that people in this country still equate the war in Iraq with 9/11- it was never a war about the attacks on the WTC.  It was always a war about Saddam hording weapons of mass destruction- an allegation which was never proved, incidentally.

It doesn't need to be fair when we tell Iran not to have nukes (although even that objection is insane, btw).  The world isn't fair.  The people of the United States don't want Iran to have nukes and that's all the reason anybody needs, because we can back it up.

This is perhaps the most frightening political position I've heard put forth by an American, especially because it so directly relates to a failed historical position.  Specifically, this was the position of Athens before they entered the Peloponnesian Wars.  If you're curious about the results of those conflicts, I recommend the lecture series by Rufus Fears (TTC, Famous Greeks), your local library, or just Wiki them.

[Yaponvezos]

Let the record show that I'm actually still pissed off with Athens AND Sparta for the Peloponneisian War. And I'm a Greek. Immense stupidity and ego fused together to almost destroy a civilization.

On to the fear argument. I did not say that fear does not play a big role. I am saying that fear should not play a role. And fear sustains order not peace. The moment you have to instill fear to make anything move, you know you have reached decadence and it's only a matter of time before you crumble and fall.

Again I'm not saying everyone thinks like I do and what I'm saying has nothing to do with left or right for me. And since numerous examples in which fear was a "peacekeeping" factor were mentioned, take a moment to think where that factor lead with remarkamble certainty and precision and for what reason.

As for what justifies war, I think stmercy put it quite well.

[Lingster]

As I said, the world isn't fair.  There is no such thing as international law to any degree that matters, because international bodies have no real enforcement power.  So metaphors about neighbors' houses don't work, because my neighbor can call the police but Eritrea cannot.  (And if international bodies were somehow endowed with that kind of power, they would quickly turn into tyrannical entities because with no constituency they'd have no accountability.)

Real power in this world is represented by the ability to project military force and generate or control trade.  Much of Europe has had to do very little to protect itself for the last 60 years because the U.S. has done it for them.  We did this to guarantee trade and protect our strategic position.  Likewise, countries like Mexico and Canada have gone about 140 and 200 years, respectively, without significant armed activity on their territory, at least in part because of their proximity to the United States.  South America has been blessedly free from large-scale war, substantially as a result of the 1823 U.S. "Monroe Doctrine" – declaring the Western Hemisphere off-limits to foreign colonization and proxy wars.  Why did the U.S. have a right to make such a declaration?  Because we could back it up.  And that prevented Spain and France from re-colonizing Latin America.

Conversely, the Philippines went through such heartache and devastation during World War II because the U.S. did not have sufficient power to project in the Western Pacific.  Japan was able to seize the territory and commit all sorts of horrors.  Also, while the U.S. was preoccupied with its Civil War (1861-1865), France violated the Monroe Doctrine and invaded Mexico, setting up a short-lived puppet regime.

We don't want anyone's territory, and we don't want to take anyone's resources without paying for them.  It's called the "Pax Americana", and everybody's free to love it or not.  But if someone actually attempts to challenge it, like Iran, then we have the power and the justification to squash them.  There's too much at stake for us to worry about trivial-minded European attempts to assign moral equivalence between the United States and Iran.

[Yaponvezos]

I have to insist. You really have to study history. And no. Reading it doesn't count. It's much more complicated than that. There's a reason history is supposed to be a science.

[Lingster]

If you studied history you'd know everything eventually falls apart.  I'm not proposing a permanent solution to the world's problems because there is no permanent solution.  But for the next 30 or 50 years or so, the U.S. is likely to continue to be the dominant power in the world.

You could do a lot worse.  You Greeks have, in fact, done a lot worse in that past.

[Yaponvezos]

Of course we have.That's why I'm saying these things so that you don't do as bad. We 've done a lot better too in the case of the (Eastern) Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire, whatever floats your boat).  The fact that everything falls apart eventually can't be your excuse for not trying to make things better. According to this logic, since I'm going to die, you might as well kill me now and get it over with. Even chaos has laws of logic. That does not mean there 're right by default.

[Lingster]

Trying to engineer people or societies is folly – that's the domain of socialists, communists and other utopians.  Governments cannot make the world a better place – all they can do is stay out of the way and let people make it a better place.  It's largely an effect of commerce.
 
Things happen as they will – the job of the U.S. for the last 60 years and for the foreseeable future is to keep order in the world.  And yes, we try to make the sort of order that is agreeable to us.  But we make the world safe for commerce, and that's very important.

You Europeans gripe at our goals for stability, and you balk at our goals for improvement.  But you're not willing to do what you need to do to be taken seriously, which is increase your military spending.  That's where your Peloponnesian War comparisons fall flat, because there is no rival power.  Even if the United States should face massive defeat somewhere overseas, with hundreds of thousands of dead military personnel and the sinking of our surface fleet, there is no country or league of countries capable of mounting an invasion of the United States.  Plus we also have a substantial number of nuclear submarines, something Athens lacked.

If missile defense can be made to work, the largest homeland threat we'll face is enemies smuggling nuclear weapons into our territory.  (Since Iran sneaks weapons into other countries as a major element of its foreign policy, it would thus be folly to allow Iran to acquire nukes.)

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