[un]Holy smoke! Is Rush still doing drugs?

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Cool Hand

I couldn't agree more. Diplomacy falls flat when there is no credible threat behind it to act as an enforcement mechanism. Another way of stating it is that without armed force in reserve, diplomacy has no teeth.

As for simulataneously preventing and preparing for war, one need look no further than the Cold War to see an instance of this being successful. Of course, my example refers only to its success in preventing nuclear war between the United States and Western Europe on one side and the Soviet Bloc on the other. It says nothing about the tragic consequence of the world's witnessing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other nation states, possibly to rogue terrorist groups, within the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, and to the enormous threat to everyone that the existence of the weapons themselves poses.

However nutty it may have been, the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD) that both sides adopted worked to prevent a nuclear first strike by either side. I submit that the armed race and the MAD policy is an instance of simultaneously preparing for and preventing a war.

Einstein was wrong in this instance.

Cool Hand

I was actually thinking of MAD and the cold war when I posted as an obvious example. I didnt want to use it for fear of getting bogged down in talking about covert ops and puppet governments, you know the conflicts that we did engage in on the basis of the cold war.

[wade-w]

War sucks. Big Time. I really wish that there was a way to get rid of it all together. However, very occasionally there is such a thing as a just and necessary war. WW II comes to mind. It could be argued that if the aftermath of WW I had been better handled, WW II would not have been necessary, and there is a lot of truth to that. But it doesn't change the fact that the generation that waged WW II had no real choice in the matter, it was fight or be subjugated and for many, massacred. Pacifists often then point to Ghandi and his successful non-violent resistance. his method works only when your opponent has a conscience. If you try and employ such tactics against a Stalin or a Pol Pot, then all you will accomplish is a staggeringly high death toll. And it'll be entirely one-sided.

Someone once said: "It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, as long as wolves remain of a different opinion." I think that pretty much sums it up for me. I really do wish it weren't so. Nor am I claiming that all or even most wars are justifiable.

[Petra]

Kind of off-topic, but a Rush quote, so not too off-topic.

"And now the liberals want to stop President Reagan from selling chemical warfare agents and military equipment to Saddam Hussein and why? Because Saddam 'allegedly' gassed a few Kurds in his own country. Mark my words. All of this talk of Saddam Hussein being a 'war criminal' or 'committing crimes against humanity' is the same old thing. LIBERAL HATE SPEECH! and speaking of poison gas... I SAY WE ROUND UP ALL THE DRUG ADDICTS AND GAS THEM TOO!......."

Rush Limbaugh, November 3, 1988

What a maniac!

[wade-w]

Originally Posted by lunachick

Kind of off-topic, but a Rush quote, so not too off-topic.

What a maniac!

Yes, a maniac, and a hypocrite as well. One didn't (or doesn't) have to be a liberal to oppose selling chemical munitions to anyone, even if they haven't already demonstrated that they will not hesitate to use them on a civilian population.

And, ummm, if we rounded up all the drug addicts, wouldn't that have included good ole Rush himself?

Another off topic observation: imo, Rush's hero President Reagan should have been impeached and then tried for high treason.

[Cool Hand]

Originally Posted by wade-w

War sucks. Big Time. I really wish that there was a way to get rid of it all together. However, very occasionally there is such a thing as a just and necessary war. WW II comes to mind. It could be argued that if the aftermath of WW I had been better handled, WW II would not have been necessary, and there is a lot of truth to that. But it doesn't change the fact that the generation that waged WW II had no real choice in the matter, it was fight or be subjugated and for many, massacred. Pacifists often then point to Ghandi and his successful non-violent resistance. his method works only when your opponent has a conscience. If you try and employ such tactics against a Stalin or a Pol Pot, then all you will accomplish is a staggeringly high death toll. And it'll be entirely one-sided.

Yep. War happens, and it will continue to happen. No amount of wishful thinking will change that. In my opinion, war is an inherent feature of human civilization (not of all societies or cultures, but of civilization itself).

Incidentally, Ghandi had this to say about Adolf Hitler (I am not invoking Godwin's law; this happens to be on point):

I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed.

--Mohandas K. Gandhi, May 1940, The Experts Speak, p. 283, Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky, Pantheon Books, New York, 1984.

Those are interesting words from history's best known pacifist.

wade-w said:

Someone once said: "It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, as long as wolves remain of a different opinion." I think that pretty much sums it up for me. I really do wish it weren't so. Nor am I claiming that all or even most wars are justifiable.

It was William Ralph Inge.

Pacifism can be very dangerous. We can transplant the same primary objection so many persons have to our most recent invasion of Iraq from 2003 Iraq (essentially, "War is never justified, except in self-defense") to late 1930s Europe. It fact, many did at that time, culminating most infamously in the Munich Pact of 1938.

Here's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain speaking to his countrymen on September 30, 1938, immediately after he and French Premier Edouard Dadalier entered into the Munich Pact with Hitler. In it, they granted Hitler the authority to occupy the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia without reprisal, but promised to insure Poland's security:

For the second time in our history, A British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time.... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

Ibid. at 106.

President Franklin Roosevelt said this in response to Chamberlain's signing of the Munich Pact. "Good man."

Here's part of Dadalier's speech about the occasion, from the Le Bourget Airport on the same day:

I am ... certain today, that, thanks to the desire to make mutual concessions, and thanks to the spirit of collaboration which has animated the action of the four Great Powers of the West, peace is saved.

Ibid. at 107.

The Daily Express in London, La Liberte in Paris, and The New York Times in New York each expressed similar opinions that the Munich Pact was indicative that Germany wanted peace in Europe, and that peace would be sustained.

Of course, we know that less than 6 months later, Germany seized the rest of Czechoslovakia. Further, on September 1, 1939, less than a year after the Munich Pact, Germany invaded Poland. That invasion forced Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany in order to keep their promises to insure Poland's security, and to save face on the international world stage.

Few would have predicted just how far-reaching Hitler's plans for world domination actually were at the time, and few would have predicted just how close he would come to conquering all of Europe.

The painful memory of just how easily nearly all the European nations tumbled, one by one, and fell under Nazi occupation and control was the basis for the "Domino Theory" to contain Soviet and Chinese Communism during the Cold War. It's why we fought the Korean War, why we fought the Chinese-sponsored North Vietnamese in Vietnam, why we supported Afghanistan in its war with the Soviets in 1979, and why we supported rebel insurgents in South American uprisings against Communist supported regimes in the early and mid-1980s.

Inge understood that decisions to engage in armed conflict are often difficult and not binary. It's often not a choice between simply War: bad, and Peace: good. I wish so many persons would stop trying to reduce it to such black and white terms.

I'm not trying to compare the circumstances leading to WWII to those in 2002 or 2003 Iraq. Obviously, they are very different. Nevertheless, the primary objection I keep hearing--war is never justified, except in self-defense--is too simple to apply across the board.

There are many circumstances other than self-defense of a sovereign nation in which persons can justly engage in armed conflict. An uprising against oppression is but one such circumstance. The American Revolutionary War, the French Revolution, and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia are but three examples of that one circumstance.

Cool Hand

[wade-w]

Originally Posted by Cool Hand

Inge understood that decisions to engage in armed conflict are often difficult and not binary. It's often not a choice between simply War: bad, and Peace: good. I wish so many persons would stop trying to reduce it to such black and white terms.

This is the crux of the matter, to me. Yes, war is bad. And it's always bad. However, there are times when the alternatives are even worse. Not often, but it has happened in the past and I have no doubt that such circumstances will again occur.

Oh, and thanks for giving me the source for that quote, Cool Hand.

[Cool Hand]

Originally Posted by wade-w

This is the crux of the matter, to me. Yes, war is bad. And it's always bad. However, there are times when the alternatives are even worse. Not often, but it has happened in the past and I have no doubt that such circumstances will again occur.

Do you mean war is always bad in that casualties always result and that cities, towns, and countrysides get damaged? Isn't that a trivial observation that all of us can agree on? I don't mean "trivial" in the sense that it's foolish or insignificant, but rather that it isn't controversial or contentious.

What about whether undertaking to wage war is justified in some circumstances? In that sense is war always bad?

What revolutions to overthrow oppressive governments?

What about to prevent or to stop genocides and similar atrocities?

What about coming to the aid of allies who have been attacked?

What about to stop the exploitation and depletion of a precious natural resource by a unilateral actor in contravention of the desires of the rest of the world?

Oh, and thanks for giving me the source for that quote, Cool Hand.

You are very welcome.

Cool Hand

[wade-w]

What did Sherman mean when he said "War is Hell?" Somehow I doubt that he meant just the casualties and associated property damage. I'm not articulate enough to be able to frame my thoughts on this in a coherent manner, so please forgive me for not being clearer. But as I said, there are times when the alternatives to war are worse than war itself. I'm also not claiming that war is only justified in cases of self defense of a sovereign nation. But even when justified, war is still most emphatically not a good thing. It's just, at times, the lesser of two (or more) evils.

As an aside that is not necessarily apropos of anything, I am a veteran as well, Cool Hand. I spent my time in the military preparing for WW III between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and if the bubble had gone up, I most likely would have been on the front lines of the Third Battle of the Atlantic.

[Cool Hand]

Originally Posted by wade-w

What did Sherman mean when he said "War is Hell?" Somehow I doubt that he meant just the casualties and associated property damage. I'm not articulate enough to be able to frame my thoughts on this in a coherent manner, so please forgive me for not being clearer. But as I said, there are times when the alternatives to war are worse than war itself. I'm also not claiming that war is only justified in cases of self defense of a sovereign nation. But even when justified, war is still most emphatically not a good thing. It's just, at times, the lesser of two (or more) evils.

I suspect that he meant also that those who fight wars undergo a heavy emotional burden during and after war, as do non-combatants who are affected. That's indisputable.

We don't have any disagreement here, as far as I can tell. It's just not the source of much controversy.

As an aside that is not necessarily apropos of anything, I am a veteran as well, Cool Hand. I spent my time in the military preparing for WW III between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and if the bubble had gone up, I most likely would have been on the front lines of the Third Battle of the Atlantic.

Thank you for that. I have little doubt that it was tense and hardly a source of glee. I hope no one has gotten the impression that I think killing people is fun. I'm sure you haven't.

Cool Hand

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by wade-w

What did Sherman mean when he said "War is Hell?" Somehow I doubt that he meant just the casualties and associated property damage.

The full quotation (as cited by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman in "On Killing") is most revealing:

"I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."

Cheers,

Michael