...I wanted to write this yesterday during Memorial Day, but I just didn't have the time to put it all together. I think it's safe to say that most everyone who's on Daily Kos believes that the Iraq War is a horrible mistake. But have we all reached the same conclusion, but for different reasons? Are some pacifists who see war itself as unjust, where others see Bush & his crew fucking up something that could have been "won" if in different hands? It led me to wonder about what most people on Daily Kos believed was the appropriate time & circumstance to use military force.
When do you belive war is "just"?
Levels & Degrees
Here's a few possible positions about war in general, and how it colors the view of Iraq...
Pacifism
The Iraq War is a horrible mistake because violence & war are always inherently wrong...
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it....Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
-Martin Luther King, "Strength to Love" (1963)
Pragmatism
The war in Iraq was a mistake, not because war is inherently wrong and "always" unjustified, but because it was unjustified in this instance. While war is a horrible thing that should be done only under certain circumstances, it is sometimes necessary for the common good...
Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.
-Niccolò Machiavelli, "The Prince" (1532)
Legitimate Policy
War is a legitimate extension of political will, but is dependent on the policy & values of those who fight it. Iraq is a horrible mistake, not because war is always unjustified or even that it was unjustified in this instance, but because of the lack of a coherent plan, the dishonesty of the reasoning used to push the country into it, and the competency of the officials in charge. The Iraq War might have taken a different course if those in charge & the planning had been different...
Politics is the womb in which war develops - where its outlines already exist in their hidden rudimentary form, like the characteristics of living creatures in their embryos....War is merely the continuation of politics by other means.
-Carl von Clausewitz, "On War" (1832)
...These are just a few of the possible ways of looking at this. There are many "levels & degrees" between these positiions, and even to the right & left of them.
Never Again?
World War II has been called the last "good" war because of it being a response to an attack on our soil & the cause being the "just" elimination of the evils of fascism. Once, when monsters walked the Earth in the light of day, the world promised to never let those evils happen again. However, coming up with a saying like "Never Again" is much easier than actually living up to it. The people of Rwanda & the Sudan could tell you that. The Rwandan Genocide claimed near a million lives in less than a hundred days, while the rest of the world watched & did not a goddamn thing. Pacifism, "visualizing peace", and trying to use reason are kind of hard to do with the Interahamwe that rounded up people with machetes...
...If Bush wanted to send 50,000 American troops to the Sudan to stop the genocide, would that be an appropriate use of force? President Clinton has said that Rwanda is the biggest regret of his Presidency. Looking back, should he have sent thousands of American troops into Rwanda? Does it make a difference when force is used for humanitarian reasons rather than for a polical objective in the national interest? All of this leads into debates of whether we have a duty or responsibility to risk American lives & resources to help people, even if it doesn't directly affect the "national interests" geopolitically.
Ends & Means
Do the ends of a war, the purpose, justify the means of war itself? I mentioned that WWII is seen as a "good" war, but some of the tactics taken to defeat Hitler & Imperial Japan have been debated since. Whether the Firebombing of Dresden & the use of Nuclear Weapons against Hiroshima & Nagasaki was appropriate, have long been issues of contention. The Japanese had murdered millions of Chinese, Koreans, and Filipinos. To bring them to their knees & ultimately stop them, we killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima & Nagasaki. On the flip side, should we have sacrificed thousands of American lives in an invasion of Japan instead of using nukes?
The Civil War presents similar questions. The war that defeated the Confederacy & what it stood for changed America for the better. It led us down the path to ending slavery, and gave us the civil war amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) to the constitution that are the foundation of many civil liberties. Abraham Lincoln is considered the greatest President in the nation's history. He's the man who pulled the United States back together after it had crumbled apart. However, would he & Generals Grant and Sherman be considered war criminals under current standards? Lincoln did suspend Habeus Corpus. General (and future President) Ulysses S. Grant put Vicksburg, Mississippi under siege & starved the population to the point they had eaten horses, dogs, and finally shoe leather for sustinence. General William Tecumseh Sherman & his "March To The Sea" gave him infamy in the south, who saw it as a "scorched earth" policy. Sherman's capture of Atlanta is thought to have been pivotal in Lincoln winning re-election in 1864. Sherman burned Atlanta & then moved toward Savannah, with his army "living off the land" as they moved. But what if Sherman hadn't done these things? The continued survival of the Confederacy (and the darkness it stood for) could have been worse. Do the ends sometimes justify the means?