Well, I guess WWII is perfectly justified, then.
Sure it was, the axis powers broke treaties on the way to war, and declared war on us first.
The USA avoided (some could say broke) treaties and never declared war to Iraq on the way in, and here we are. With less evidence to justify why we got in, and with an El Salvador plan to pacify the country.
Just checking.
Oh pahleeeeeze.
Self defense is a perfectly valid reason for violence, even lethal force. The qualifier is that in defending myself against you, I shouldn’t kill your neighbors too. Likewise, at least as far as I’m aware stateside, you have to respond with equal force. If you try to punch me in the face, and I haul out a hand cannon and blow your head off, that’s a bad thing.
So, to recap:
Defending yourself against a genocidal regime bent on global conquest? Acceptable.
Starting an unprovoked war of agression against a defanged dictator who writes romance novels… and starting this war in such a manner that it destabilizes the country and perhaps the entire region and leads to greater death and pain in the future? Not acceptable.
See, idealogues (like you) are dangerous, you’re almost always the most dangerous to those who you’re trying to save. See, if you can ignore the human cost of your actions, then you don’t have to try to do what’s right. All you have to do is scream “Evildoers!” and drop some bombs.
That’s called “having to destroy the village in order to save it.”
Myself… I’d rather take my chances without such kindness. Thanks though. Really, it’s a sweet gesture.
And there was more to check in the last post that you cowardly avoided you viking melon farmer! *
*
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6282416&postcount=5
Well, it looks like a sure thing now but not everybody thought so, as John Dos Passos described in 1946:
And to be fair, things were not all that clear cut, as described by Allen Dalles:
Is that a yes, a no, or another attempt to avoid answering?
No, NI, things are almost never cut and dry. The only place absolutes exist is in our heads when we draw up maps and try to ram Reality through them. Reality is messy, chaotic, variform. Yes, it was right to stop Hitler. But at the same time, yes, there were things we did wrong.
See, having a good goal does not excuse the crimes commited along the way. We are not Medici Princes. This is how one can say that Sadaam should have been taken out, but that we went about it wrong. This is how one can say that Hitler had to be stopped, but maybe we made mistakes during the course of the war. This is life. It’s messy, it doesn’t always make sense, and sometimes it seems downright counter-intuitive.
Drink deep.
FinAgain,
That’s all I wanted to here. I knew you had it in you. Why didn’t you say that in the first place?
I did.
There are none so deaf as those who will not hear.
Don’t you start that again!