[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Bin Laden is still at large, but Milosevic was stopped a long time ago, mostly thanks to the actions of the U.S. military, belated though they may have been. Many Kosovars owe their live to military action.
[/QUOTE]
Ironically enough, Milosevic was ousted mostly due to a nonviolent student-led movement. Pacifism does not in any way preclude protecting the innocent or fighting for a cause. I daresay that armed rebellion would have ended bloodily indeed, but Serbian students and eventually other citizens were able to force elections without resorting to violent action.
India and Ghandi, Denmark in WWII, the American civil rights movement, Chile in the 1970’s, Serbia in 2000, and there are plenty of other examples - nonviolent action has a long and successful track record of working for justice and social change, often succeeding where violence has previously failed. It hasn’t gotten the attention that flashier, more orthodox military or other violent action has, but it certainly doesn’t appear to be any less successful, especially since it doesn’t have nearly the same propensity for triggering vengeance-driven endemic violence.
Pacifists and nonviolent movements get a bad rap, and this puzzles me. It works, it does so in a way that unites people instead of dividing them, and furthermore, it’s fucking hard. To participate in a movement like Ghandi’s or those Serbian students’ requires conviction and courage. The movements themselves require organization and a level of strategy to make any general proud. The danger of death or at least imprisonment are VERY real in some movements. Pacifist nonviolent action is not the route of a coward, not if they want to make a difference.
Look, I’m not saying that it always works or is always appropriate, but I’m a little bit tired of all the bullshit. If you still want to argue against pacifism, that’s fine, but argue against the real thing, which DOES have principles and DOES have a success stories, not this pathetically vulnerable straw man that you’ve constructed for your walloping pleasure. As for myself, I’m living proof that pacifism represents a range of beliefs. I’m a birthright Quaker who grew up attending meeting. I also happen not to be the strictest pacifist around; I think that a police force, regulated and monitored but strong, is a necessary condition of keeping the peace in a community, especially a large one. I also think that it is justified to use violence in personal defense, as necessary, though running away is preferred when possible (this is a pragmatic assessment: I, for example am small and fast. My chances of successfully escaping are much greater than my chances of handing out a beat-down to my assailant). I deeply admire those that take their beliefs to the extent of never practicing violence. I do not have that level of commitment. These people are quite capable of protecting and defending others, but I will readily agree that they are sacrificing a certain element of pragmatism in the options open to them.
You know, pacifists can’t afford to be foolish about the way the world works. There will always be bad people in the world - people who want to harm, oppress or kill others. That’s obviously true. That doesn’t mean that there is no other means to fight back but with violence. A lot of the kids I grew up with would say “there’s no way I would join the military or fight in a war, because I know I couldn’t kill somebody.” You might dismiss this as foolish - and I agree completely. I have a moral opposition to violence because in part because I KNOW that I am quite capable of it, that I am human like anyone else, and that this can lead me to do terrible things. I don’t want to do terrible things, but I do want to stop other people from doing them. I also don’t want to die, which is an obvious advantage to being opposed to military service, but I would also like to hope that, when the chips go down, that I would be willing to lay down my life for what I believe in, like those Christian peacemaker teams. We all have an obligation to fight for what’s right, and a pacifist who isn’t willing to put herself in harm’s way for her beliefs is, IMO, not really doing it right. No one said it had to be easy, you know.