America- Arms dealer to the stars

[gurujulp]

This was on the local paper’s web site here in San Francisco.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/09/09/notes090909.DTL

It’s true: We sell more guns, more major weaponry, tanks and rocket launchers, fighters and Gatling guns and all sorts of brutal devices specifically designed to destroy human life and induce fear and dread and all manner of sadistic horror, than any other developed nation on the planet. By a long shot.

I believe this, and I am indeed a bit bummed by this, as I have studied my world history for the last century, but I don’t have any rage against weapons, and I actually find this next bit of rhetoric rather juvenile:

You can even go so far as to suggest that our arms deals are not promoting war, per se, but actually promoting peace, in that inverse, bad-is-good, multiple-wrongs-make-a-right sort of way. It’s the classic, ridiculous NRA argument: if everyone owns a few thousand warheads, no one will shoot anyone simply because they don’t want to get shot themselves. It’s pathetic nonsense, but hey, whatever gets you through, right?

What I don’t understand, and I hear it all the time, from various individuals and groups, including some family and friends here and there, is the idea that “War never solved/changed/resolved anything.”

While I don’t agree with the cold war MAD philosophy, I can’t help but notice that war and violence does indeed solve many things. Ask the Inca, the North American Native Americans, ask the Japanese, ask the Polish, the Russians, the French- in short, ask anyone who has ever been involved in a war or revolution. Many of the conflicts are not resolved in the way either or all sides would like, but they definitely impact the world and their own circumstance, and have wiped out a few civilizations.

I think it is better to be armed than not, and I think that everyone should be armed to help defend themselves, so I am not really sorry about the US arming everyone. Just giving people guns isn’t the problem, it is indeed the intent of the armed persons that can be an issue. As long as we are all armed and trained, we can be responsible for our own defense- until then, we are babes crying for the protection of the government.

For total disclosure, I don’t own a gun, and haven’t for several decades- but I think I should.

Why do people state that war never solved anything?

I didn’t put this in GD, because I think the weapon thing has been beaten to death, I just wanted to put this out as MHO.

Thanks!