PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Rush on May 12, 2021, 10:43:56 AM
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My position on various wars has changed through my life. I am still somewhat malleable and want to refine my position by considering more perspectives. So if you can indulge me please?
Here’s a rundown of my journey:
Age 14: The first time I had a position. Very simple, I was against it. Simple information: I saw young men were being killed in Vietnam and I had friends registering for the draft. (I had 18 year old male friends when I was 14 believe it or not.)
Age 21: I realized economic collectivism (aka communism) was evil and worth fighting against so modified my anti-war position. Also developed highly libertarian views and became favorable to wars against tyranny such as the American Revolution or WWII.
Age 45: 9/11. Go kill the bastards! Behind the War on Terror 100%. I was offended by the Islamofascist attack on my country and took it very personally. I would have gone over there myself if I’d not been a middle aged mother of teenagers. This carried over somewhat to Iraq but I began to slowly question the reasons for it. I was more or less accepting of the “weapons of mass destruction” claim about Saddam but as it dragged on I began to shift more toward skepticism.
When Saddam was captured and interrogated he said something that changed my view completely. He said (I’m paraphrasing) “I put out the word to the CIA that I had WoMD to discourage Iran from attacking me. I was bluffing. I thought that’s what the U.S. wanted me to do, so Iran wouldn’t spread in the region, I feel betrayed by the U.S.” So Bush didn’t lie about it. But neither was our invasion of Iraq the morally clean act we were led to believe. And then of course it dragged on so long it became indefensible. It’s clear we cannot nation make in regions still so ethnically and religiously tribal. And the west bears some responsibility for drawing arbitrary borders in settling WWI or II without considering traditional ethnic group territories. We can’t go in and fix that now by trying to force them to live together yet we’ve been screwing around in Iraq trying to do just that for 20 years. Well 30 if you count Bush 1’s war. Enough already.
So I’ve flip flopped on Iraq.
That pretty much brings me to today where I am now thinking more seriously about the underlying money and power structures that are the real reasons for warmongering. The supposed grift of the powers that be and the MIC.
On the one hand, if we are to ever need to prosecute a just war, say our homeland is invaded, we need the MIC, and we need it functional and strong as a going concern, so it’s not bad per se. It needs to be exercised periodically. On the other hand, is it or has it been fed unnecessarily with our soldiers lives beyond what’s necessary? I now think YES.
Throwing a complicated wrench into all this is the split in the U.S. and the possibility of civil war. Who would control the MIC? Am I prepared to kill fellow Americans to preserve the Constitution? Am I prepared to die?
I would love to hear your journey and thoughts on all of this.
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war - necessary evil in some circumstances. One example would be war to defend one country from an attack by another country (after the attack).
Would war ever be justified if the attacks were entirely within a country? e.g., genocide of the Armenians.
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My primary thought is that if you are going to fight a war, fight to win. Quickly.
I loved it when Patton said that you don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making some other poor bastard die for his country.
But that doesn't address my first statement about "if you are going to fight a war". Sometimes, you have to. Sometimes, you don't.