We're all pacifists, aren't we?

[Plan_B]

OK, maybe not all of us. There are a few Jihadists out there and probably there are other groups that have a really small minority that believe that it would be good to have a war to extend their power. Let’s leave them out of this discussion. I’m referring to the vast majority of Americans, and probably the vast majority of the citizens of every country, other than the exceptions noted above.

My own experience is that I never hear anyone say that war is a good thing. I haven’t read a single Internet post, magazine article or anything which suggests war is good.

Yet, people persist in labelling others as warmongers and I think that’s a big mistake.

There are definitely differences of opinion in how to attain peace. For instance in Iraq there are many good reasons for the US to not be there. For the record, I support the war, but not because I like war. If given a choice between a short war with fewer casualties which is won by a democracy or a longer war with more casualties whichis won by a tyranny, well to me that’s a no-brainer. Now, I may be wrong about Iraq. It’s a gamble, for sure. But I support the war as a means of getting it over with quickly, maybe analogous to getting an inoculaton which has side effects. And to think that I like war in some way is just plain wrong.

From my conversations and reading, I think that most of the time, most of the people who support a war do so for pretty much the same reasons. They are good people and they believe that a short war is better than a long war.

Obviously, many of the left have villified the war supporters as evil people who like war. Can this be justified? Am I missing something? Where is the web site, article, speech, etc., to support this?

I don’t believe there is an equivalent movement on the right. If you read conservatives on the war they’ll say that appeasement leads to greater death tolls later on. But they don’t say that’s the motive of the war protesters. If I wrong about that I’d be interested in seeing the cites.

Also, I don’t think we need another thread on the merits of the war. I’m interested in learning about and discussing different points of view about the perceived characteristics of people who sometimes support one side in a war. If you think I’m not opposed to war, tell me why.

[WhyNot]

I think you’re working off a very different definition of “pacifist” than my dictionary is. And if you do that, sure, you can make it mean anything you want. But following the dictionary defintion, no, we are not all pacifists. You are not a pacifist if you “support the war as a means of getting it over with quickly” to attain peace. A pacifist is one who believes in using no war or violence in order to attain peace.

From www.thefreedictionary.com (my Firefox add-on):

pacifism

1. The belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully.

a. Opposition to war or violence as a means of resolving disputes.
b. Such opposition demonstrated by refusal to participate in military action.

We all (most of us) want peace, sure. But that’s not the same thing as being a pacifist. “Pacifism” refers to the *methods *one utilizes to resolve disputes, not the desire to resolve them.

[SSG_Schwartz]

Without war, there would be no combat stress casualties. Without combat stress casualties there would be no combat stress control units. Without combat stress control units, I wouldn’t have a job. (At least for the time being.)

I don’t like the idea of people getting killed in a war, but I do like my job. Parse that as you may, but if there was world peace, I would be flipping burgers again.

SSG Schwartz

[mswas]

Ultimately human beings come across a point where the ideas of one group cannot be reconciled with the ideas of another, at that time they must decide which is more important, the idea or the lives of the opposition. A lot of the time we choose the idea.

None of us are pacifists. You kill to eat. Your food is grown on land. In order to grow food on land one must dominate and control the land. Agriculture is the root of all evil. You like to eat don’t you? If the answer is yes, then you are a war monger.

[Plan_B]

@WhyNot

I think you’re working off a very different definition of “pacifist” than my dictionary is. And if you do that, sure, you can make it mean anything you want. But following the dictionary defintion, no, we are not all pacifists. You are not a pacifist if you “support the war as a means of getting it over with quickly” to attain peace. A pacifist is one who believes in using no war or violence in order to attain peace.

From www.thefreedictionary.com (my Firefox add-on):
We all (most of us) want peace, sure. But that’s not the same thing as being a pacifist. “Pacifism” refers to the *methods *one utilizes to resolve disputes, not the desire to resolve them.

Excellent point. I should have said “We all want peace, right?”

[mswas]

@Plan B

Excellent point. I should have said “We all want peace, right?”

Theoretically, but how many people do you know who halted their conspicuous consumerism in order to reduce the amount of oil they require?

[Plan_B]

@SSG Schwartz

Without war, there would be no combat stress casualties. Without combat stress casualties there would be no combat stress control units. Without combat stress control units, I wouldn’t have a job. (At least for the time being.)

I don’t like the idea of people getting killed in a war, but I do like my job. Parse that as you may, but if there was world peace, I would be flipping burgers again.

SSG Schwartz

I appreciate your honesty. Do you think your cohorts feel the same? My brother was a Vietnam era USAF pilot. We used to argue about the war. I was against it; he was for it. Until he finished flight training.

[Plan_B]

@mswas

Theoretically, but how many people do you know who halted their conspicuous consumerism in order to reduce the amount of oil they require?

Well I did, but then again I never had real rich tastes to begin with. BTW, how’s that about “Agriculture is the root of all evil?”

[SSG_Schwartz]

@Plan B

I appreciate your honesty. Do you think your cohorts feel the same? My brother was a Vietnam era USAF pilot. We used to argue about the war. I was against it; he was for it. Until he finished flight training.

Thank you for the question. There are some that I work with that don’t want to deploy. None of those have deployment experience. There are some that have deployed that do not want to go back, but all speak highly of the experience. Most of the Combat Arms Soldiers I have spoke to understood what they were doing, especially those who enlisted post 9/11. I have met few who do not want to do what it is they do. I cannot speak for all Soldiers, but I personally do not understand how a Soldier could pray for peace. War is what we are here for.

Same as your brother, I have talked to Soldiers who have changed their minds about war after serving in combat. There are also those who enlisted without really believing that they would go to a combat zone. Even those may believe that they want world peace, but never understand that if that did occur, they would be out of a job, or at least come in with fewer incentives.

SSG Schwartz

[Mosier]

Wars are never waged for no reason. There’s always a reason. A pacifist says “there is no reason good enough to start a war” where everyone else says “there are some good reasons to start a war.” That’s the difference between us.

Warmongers are people who support wars of aggression. I think most of us acknowledge that America was the aggressor in the Iraq war, which makes the people who support it warmongers. Sure, you’d love for peace to happen in Iraq, but only on your terms, and only when you get what you want. If your terms can’t be met without war, well then by God the war is suddenly “necessary”.

But really, it wasn’t, no matter how you try to justify it.

[VinylTurnip]

@SSG Schwartz

Without war, there would be no combat stress casualties. Without combat stress casualties there would be no combat stress control units. Without combat stress control units, I wouldn’t have a job. (At least for the time being.)

I don’t like the idea of people getting killed in a war, but I do like my job. Parse that as you may, but if there was world peace, I would be flipping burgers again.

Without malignancy there would be no cancer. Without cancer there would be no cancer patients. Without cancer patients, oncologists wouldn’t have a job.

Luckily everyone’s job seems safe at the moment, yours in particular.

[mswas]

@Plan B

Well I did, but then again I never had real rich tastes to begin with. BTW, how’s that about “Agriculture is the root of all evil?”

It requires land ownership. Land ownership is the root of territoriality. To grow food you have to make a plan for the land. Not everyone will necessarily agree with that plan. That plan requires a division of labor. Not everyone will agree on how the division should occur. Agriculture is based upon surplus. We grow surplus food so that we can have extra in times of need. The problem with that is that we tend to breed to capacity. The more we breed the more voices there are of dissent. If there is ever a schism in leadership then two groups will go and take different parts of the land and use it the way they feel like it should be used. As these groups grow they begin to place a toll on there local environment. Sometimes the only arable land available to accomodate your growing family belongs to your neighbor. Add to this the question of how much surplus you need to reach the optimal point of security for you and your family and I think you see where this is headed.

[mswas]

@Vinyl Turnip

Without malignancy there would be no cancer. Without cancer there would be no cancer patients. Without cancer patients, oncologists wouldn’t have a job.

Without mutation there is no evolution.

[denquixote]

“Teddy Roosevelt was instrumental in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War and was an enthusiastic proponent of testing the U.S. military in battle, at one point stating “I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one.””

I think that is the attitude of many military people. Additionally the ease with which we are able to get into military confrontations with no sinificant outcry from the public indicates to me that we are far from being a nation of pacifists.

[Plan_B]

@Mosier

I think most of us acknowledge that America was the aggressor in the Iraq war, which makes the people who support it warmongers.

No, I don’t think it makes us warmongers at all. It just means we disagree. I would never say this in any serious kind of way but the equivalent unfair vilification might be something like this. You, Mosier, only want to avoid the war in Iraq so the Bathists and Jihadists can gain power and have a really big war on their terms a few years down the road. You want to see lots of civilians and Americans and Iraqis killed. Therefore you are a warmonger.

My point is that we both obviously agree that we’d like as few deaths as possible and so on. But we disagree on how to make that happen.

Now, if I said I’d like to have a war of aggression and it would sadden me if somehow the diplomats found a way to avoid it, and if I then started to hope for other wars to fill some need, then I’d be a warmonger.

[BrainGlutton]

From [url=]Vietnam: The Necessary War, by Michael Lind – Chapter 7, “Was the Vietnam War Unjust?”:

Arguments about the justice of the Vietnam War, like most debates about justice in foreign policy, exhibit the traits of a certain class of moral arguments identified by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre – they can never be resolved, because the debates belong to incompatible moral traditions and reason from different moral premises. In his book After Virtue (1981), MacIntyre provides rival views of justice in war as the first of his example of “interminable” contemporary moral debates:

1. (a) A just war is one in which the good to be achieved outweighs the evils involved in waging the war and in which a clear distinction can be made between combatants – whose lives are at stake – and innocent noncombatants. But in a modern war calculation of future escalation is never reliable and no practically applicable distinctions between combatants and noncombatants can be made. Therefore no modern war can be a just war and we all ought now to be pacifists.

(b) If you wish for peace, prepare for war. The only way to achieve peace is to deter potential aggressors. Therefore you must build up your armaments and make it clear that going to war on any particular scale is not necessarily ruled out by your policies. An inescapable part of making this clear is being prepared both to fight limited wars and to go not only to, but beyond, the nuclear brink on certain types of occasion. Otherwise you will not avoid war and you will be defeated.

© Wars between Great Powers are purely destructive, but wars waged to liberate oppressed groups, especially in the Third World, are a necessary and therefore justified means for destroying the exploitative domination which stands between mankind and happiness.

For the sake of comprehensiveness, it is useful to add to MacIntyre’s list what might be called the “militarist” or “fascist” argument:

(d) Social life, like biological life, consists of unceasing struggle for survival and domination. The most glorious human type is the warrior, and the only life worth living is one of armed combat against national or personal enemies. Peace is a contemptible state, tolerable only as an intermission in campaigns to conquer or avoid being conquered.

Adherents of these four views of morality in war have very little to say to one another, beyond stating their positions. “From our rival conclusions we can argue back to our rival premises,” MacIntyre observes, “but when we do arrive at our premises argument ceases and the invocation of one premise against another becomes a matter of pure assertion and counter-assertion. Hence perhaps the slightly shrill tone of so much moral debate.”

However, to be truly comprehensive, we should add a fifth, the “imperialist” or “piratical” argument:

(e) War is not necessarily desirable or glorious in and of itself. It is, however, a perfect legitimate means for a nation or state to win territory, resources, power, or anything else that might serve its national interests. Independent sovereign states, even if internally ordered by laws and social and moral norms, exist in a perpetual state of nature in relation to one another, because “international law” is an oxymoronic and meaningless concept in the absence of any international government with the power to enforce it. A perpetual competition for power and wealth is therefore inevitable, and any nation too scrupulous to participate will fall prey to other states with less tender consciences. Now lie down on the floor and remain calm.

I venture to suggest that theory (e) has played a more important role in influencing the actual behavior of states and leaders throughout history than the other four combined. I even see it, in effect, occasionally defended in this Forum.

[Ravenman]

@Plan B

Excellent point. I should have said “We all want peace, right?”

I cannot see how someone can support the war in Iraq and lay an honest claim to wanting peace. If you want a war to continue, you don’t want peace, you want victory. Victory could result in peace or more war: therefore peace is not victory; and war is not peace. QED.

[BrainGlutton]

@BrainGlutton

I venture to suggest that theory (e) has played a more important role in influencing the actual behavior of states and leaders throughout history than the other four combined. I even see it, in effect, occasionally defended in this Forum.

E.g. And see subsequent posts in the same thread.

[Ocean_Annie]

@Plan B

Obviously, many of the left have villified the war supporters as evil people who like war. Can this be justified? Am I missing something? Where is the web site, article, speech, etc., to support this?

I don’t believe there is an equivalent movement on the right. If you read conservatives on the war they’ll say that appeasement leads to greater death tolls later on. But they don’t say that’s the motive of the war protesters. If I wrong about that I’d be interested in seeing the cites.

I don’t think you or anyone else is a bad person for supporting the Iraq War. Human behavior is complex. I don’t like to think of people in terms of bad or good. I believe the political dichotomy that divides American voters into *us *and *them *only overshadows the common goals we share.

Americans were misled and manipulated into the Iraq War. Anyone who initially supported the war didn’t have accurate information to make a truly informed opinion; however, there is overwhelming evidence now that invalidates all of reasons used by the G. W. Bush administration to justify the Iraq War. People were duped by a president with no real intelligence on Iraq and a soft media dominated by extreme conservatism.

[Quartz]

I’m no pacifist: I hold to the old adage si pacem vis, bellum pare - if you want peace, prepare for war. I further hold that sometimes violence is necessary. Jaw-jaw is most certainly better than war-war, but you’ve got to be able to back up the former by the latter.