# WAR **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 1, 1999, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697 "1999-09-01T16:59:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![sly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@sly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sly)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/1 "1999-09-01T16:59:00Z")
What is it good for? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Crimson\_Hipster\_Dufuz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8baadc/32.png) [@The\_Crimson\_Hipster\_Dufuz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Crimson_Hipster_Dufuz)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/2 "1999-09-02T05:08:00Z")
It kept Eric Burden off the streets… ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/3 "1999-09-02T05:08:00Z")
Absolutely Nuttin’, say it again! Huuuuh! * * * The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik ---
**Author:** ![Bluepony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Bluepony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluepony)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/4 "1999-09-02T05:57:00Z")
Hey, don’t knock it. Kept me gainfully employed for twenty years. Like Joker said in \* Full Metal Jacket \*, I got a chance to visit interesting places, learn fascinating cultures, interact with the native peoples of faraway places…and kill them. 🙂 * * * “…send lawyers, guns, and money…” ``` Warren Zevon ``` ---
**Author:** ![Contestant\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@Contestant\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contestant_3)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/5 "1999-09-01T18:11:00Z")
Isn’t that a Tolstoy line?..hahahahaha…remember the Seinfeld episode about that? * * * Contestant #3 ---
**Author:** ![LongHrn99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e4f/32.png) [@LongHrn99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongHrn99)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/6 "1999-09-01T20:22:00Z")
Apparently it’s good for keeping a non-sexual, inapproprtiate relationship off the front page of the morning newspaper. ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/7 "1999-09-01T20:55:00Z")
Oh, come off it, LongHrn. That’s bullshit, and if you’d think about it for a moment, you would be capable of realizing it. Waste Flick Lives! ---
**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/8 "1999-09-01T20:56:00Z")
Can I intrude with a serious answer? I doubt if our society would be anywhere close to its current level of technology if it wasn’t for war. Communications, medicine, aeronautics, food storage, etc. all owe a lot to advancements made during wartime. ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/9 "1999-09-01T21:05:00Z")
Not to mention eliminating the occasional group of Europe-occupying, genocidal maniacs. * * * Livin’ on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine ---
**Author:** ![StrTrkr777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@StrTrkr777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StrTrkr777)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/10 "1999-09-01T21:27:00Z")
It was necessary for us to intervene in a several hundred year old civil war? We helped him complete his ethinic cleansing and we did a good thing? Maybe we should help more people, I am sure the IRA would like our help. Hey Bill got anything else you want to get out of the papers? Jeffery ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/11 "1999-09-01T21:35:00Z")
Uh, I was actually thinking about a slightly earlier group of Europe-occupying, genocidal maniacs. You know, the ones who actually declared war on us. You may have seen a movie or two about those guys. I’ll agree that we botched up badly our handling of the latest set of Europe-occupying, genocidal maniacs. ---
**Author:** ![LongHrn99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e4f/32.png) [@LongHrn99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LongHrn99)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/12 "1999-09-01T22:22:00Z")
Gl, I don’t trust my government. So I am entitled to my opinions, not that it matters, I was making a joke. I’m not going to put up with shit from you for making a joke. Get off my ass. If you believe that Clinton’s motives were pure, that’s your own delusional reality. But I’m not going to get into that, it has nothing to do with the OP. Once again, so as not to incur the wrath of the humor impaired, \*\*I was making a joke.[b\] ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/13 "1999-09-01T22:32:00Z")
LongHrn: Fair enough, you don’t trust your government, and fair enough, it’s your opinion. It’s also nonsense. And I’m not on your ass. Simply pointing out that you are wrong. And I doubt that Smilin’ Bill’s motives were entirely pure, but to accuse him of going to war simply to keep his hummer out of the limelight is ludicrous. Waste Flick Lives! ---
**Author:** ![VegForLife](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/9de0a6/32.png) [@VegForLife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VegForLife)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/14 "1999-09-02T00:04:00Z")
[[The Crimson Hipster Dufuz]] George? Is that you?? Rich ---
**Author:** ![Akatsukami](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea666f/32.png) [@Akatsukami](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akatsukami)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/15 "1999-09-02T00:50:00Z")
It can be a Hell of a good – or at least final – way of settling a dispute. BTW, was, “Violence never settles anything” the motto of the city of Carthage, or of Timur-i-lenk? * * * “Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.” ---
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/16 "1999-09-02T02:39:00Z")
Gwynn Dyer, a Canadian journalist, made a documentary series called “War” about twenty years ago, in which he examined the process from training for it through to postwar settlements. ## One of the themes was that wars, for good are bad, are inevitably reoccurring things that serve as a kind of social/geopolitical enema that relieves tension that’s constantly building up. They’re a forcible reorganization of the relationships between nations that get out of whack in peacetime as once-powerful nations decline and young nations grow. “Existence defies essence.” - John Barth? ---
**Author:** ![sly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@sly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sly)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/17 "1999-09-02T02:55:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I doubt if our society would be anywhere close to its current level of technology if it wasn’t for war. Good point, but I would trade CNN for a grandfather, two uncles and a handful of cousins any day. I was hoping this thread would take a different direction, so let me interject. ## WWI: 8,500,000 WWII: 45,000,000 Korea: 3,000,000 Vietnam: 2,500,000 ``` 59,000,000 ``` In this century alone, in two great wars and two conflicts: 59,000,000 lives. What is it good for? ---
**Author:** ![Bluepony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Bluepony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluepony)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/18 "1999-09-02T03:40:00Z")
45 million dead in WWII? Worth it? Would you rather see the Nazi swastika flying over Washington DC? Maybe war is just part of the human existence. - Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it’s spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men. \* - Coriolanus \*, Act !V, Scene V Shakespeare * * * “…send lawyers, guns, and money…” ``` Warren Zevon ``` ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/19 "1999-09-02T07:36:00Z")
I stand by the Augustinian definition of a just war. If a war prevents more suffering than it causes, then it is a just war and should be fought. ---
**Author:** ![GLWasteful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f05b48/32.png) [@GLWasteful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GLWasteful)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 1999, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697/20 "1999-09-02T13:23:00Z")
hansel: Is that documentary available on video by any chance? Waste Flick Lives! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war/16697.md?page=2)