I saw your comment on this. I've recommended it - even though basically I'm a pacifist. But I think this topic deserves to be debated and discussed. And I fervently hope that can happen in a spirit of compassion.

Some wars may be necessary--to maintain a certain way of life, to repel aggression, to overthrow a despot--but no wars are just. There is no justification for the taking of life.

"There are things that misguided societies decide for one reason or another are correct that are so far from just and right that it becomes the moral obligation of other societies to push back against the misguided."

What do you think started that war? The National Socialists? Ever heard of the "Treaty of Versailles"?

You're so overly simplistic.

Vous présenter un acte d'accusation de la superficialité en seulement cinquante-neuf mots? La concision, présenté comme la vérité, est le signe d'un esprit simple.

At its adoption in 1919, The Treaty of Versailles was considered to be Justice served upon Germany and its allies for initiating and losing World War I. Its conditions of reparations and cession of sovereign territory imposed upon Germany, was itself used by the National Socialists as a just rationale for World War II.

Where is the true justice and morality to be found in this?

The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just.

--D.H. Lawrence

As a matter of fact (and I think this really needs to be said) a war is at least unjust on one side, although it may be unjust on both sides. War should never start until someone has killed someone unprovoked (and even if there is an provocation, it should have to be HUGE) and rarely then. It's ALWAYS WRONG ON AT LEAST ONE SIDE.

This is all sort of counting the angels dancing on the head of a pin.

The bottom line is that sometimes a nation or society has no choice but to engage in war or be attacked and possibly even be destroyed. But those times are rare. Those rare instances are the only cases where the atrocities, murder, maiming and other barbaric activities that are part and parcel of warfare can be in any way justified. War itself is immoral whether justified or not. We have thousands of years of warfare that make that conclusion beyond debate. The only question is whether or not there is any realistic alterntive for a country or a society. Only wars fought in self defense can fit under this once exception.

Preemptive war of the sort used so tragically by the incompetent tyrant Bush the Second, is always immoral and can never be justified. Hitler invaded Poland on the pretext of having to defend Germany from an imaginary threat and provocations he said were coming from Poland in the summer of 1939. Hitler's lie about that was not believable and Bush's lie about Iraq's nonexistent WMD's were just as transparently false. Many of us pointed this out prior to the launch of that illegal, immoral war of aggression. Similarly, the colonial war we engaged in, in Viet Nam was an unustified, illegal war of aggression that relied on lies about mythical acts of hostility in the Gulf of Tonkin against a people who did nothing to the United States and posed no threat whatsoever to us or our people. A plausible case can at least be made for our current involvement in Afghanistan, but no such case existed in either Viet Nam or Iraq.

Nothing justifies the lives lost and ruined, the destruction, the disease, the deprivation, the dehumanizing effect on the soldiers and civilians forced to live through such barbarism. The long lasting negative reverberations throughout the world that occur as a result of war is also a price too high to pay for any goal that might theoretically be achieved by engaging in warfare for any reason other than self defense. Striking out because a nation, a people, or a leader and his coterie are afraid, fearful and paranoid is not synonymous with self defense.

Most wars are and always have been fought for no good reason at all which is why they are illegal. General S. D. Butler, a famous US marine commander who served from the Spanish War through the late 20's or early 30's spent a good part of his retirement decrying the immoral use of the US Marines, Army and Navy for the expansion and defense of American corporations, banks and other commercial interests in foreign lands. He personally participated in those efforts in numerous countries including China, Mexico, the Phillipines, Nicaragua, and Haiti.

If a person takes no other maxim to heart, this should be the one they heed: war is only justifiable as the very last resort available.