What to do about North Korea...?

Jose wrote:
I suspect that 2,539 (plus 3 more today) American families think we
have already lost.

Agreed. But that's the way it is in all wars.

Including wars we shouldn't be in.


Now you have me curious. I have no dog in this fight, you understand. I
have committed myself towards working for peace. Nevertheless, I am
well aware that I am able to do so only because there are others who
are willing to break the peace in order to protect the lives of me, my
family, and all that I know.

But you appear to think that there are wars we should be in. Which are
those? Can you think of a single argument in favor of going to war
with, say, Hitler or Tojo that does not apply equally well to Saddam,
Kim Il Sung, the leaders of Iran, or of Somalia?

A few weeks ago I visited the American Cemetery in Manila. It is a
beautiful spot. I took photos of seemingly endless rows of crosses and
stars against a backdrop of flame trees. There are more than 17,000
graves there. More than 3,000 of the markers have no names on them;
they are unidentified. And there is a great circle of stone tables on
which are inscribed many thousands of more names of those whose bodies
were never recovered. And these are just those Americans (and others
from several other nations fighting under the American flag) who died
in order to kick the Japanese out of the Philippines and a few islands
in the Pacific. Was it worth the cost? I wonder what the world would be
like if, after Hitler had sunk a single ship or if the Japanese had
massacred a battalion of Marines assaulting the beach, if we had just
said that the cost of opposing Hitler or Tojo was too great, if we had
just made our separate peace, abandoning our allies to their fate.

Maybe it would not have made any difference at all. Who knows?

Do you really think the world would be better off if we simply allowed
Islamic extremists to destroy Israel, unite all of the Middle East and
South Asia under an aggressive Islamic flag, overrun some more African
nations, and threaten Europe and America with nuclear weapons? What do
you suppose we would have to do to appease these people in order to
finally stop the killing and find peace? And how would we appease their
mortal enemies, who might very well adopt the same tactics of terror
that these Islamic extremists now use? Do we just do whatever anybody
holding a gun orders us to do? And what if the person holding the gun
orders you to kill somebody, perhaps a friend, perhaps even your wife
or your children?

I think, if you want to work for peace, that you need to find serious
answers to these serious questions, and stop playing the shill for
domestic and foreign politicians who would sell their country out in
return for political gain. That is, if you want peace, give me
something other than the sophomoric arguments of Michael Moore or
Barbara Streisand. Tell me what you are really willing to do in order
to achieve peace.

I think, if you want to work for peace, that you need to find serious
answers to these serious questions, and stop playing the shill for
domestic and foreign politicians who would sell their country out in
return for political gain. That is, if you want peace, give me
something other than the sophomoric arguments of Michael Moore or
Barbara Streisand. Tell me what you are really willing to do in order
to achieve peace.

Bravo! Excellent post, all 'round.

And it points up a terrible, possibly mortal weakness in the Left in
general, at least since I was in college, some 25 years ago: They only
stand AGAINST things -- they never stand FOR things.

For the Left (or, if you prefer, for the sake of this discussion, the
anti-war movement) to answer your questions would require them to make
a stand four-square FOR something, which means that moral relativism --
their central philosophy -- would cease to function. In other words,
if nothing is "right" and nothing is "wrong" -- only varying shades of
gray -- how can you possibly ever decide that *anything* is worth
fighting for?

THAT, in a nutshell, is why the Democrats (in America) and the Left
(worldwide) can't seem to get any traction in the polls. Voters may
not be able to put it into words, but people intuitively understand
that only standing against things isn't a workable solution to
anything.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

On Sun, 09 Jul 2006 20:05:52 -0700, Jay Honeck wrote:

only varying shades of gray
-- how can you possibly ever decide that *anything* is worth fighting for?

[...]

people intuitively understand that only
standing against things isn't a workable solution to anything.

This is an interesting juxtaposition. You require that one be able to
decide upon something being worth fighting for, and yet "standing against
things" isn't workable.

You make several other logical errors, perhaps the largest of which is
mixing "left" and "anti-war". In fact, even "anti-war" is a misnomer and
simplification. There's a difference between a pacifist that is against
war as an institution and someone that is against the current "war" in
Iraq.

But this is all a game of public relations. Just as the debate about
illegal immigration was framed as one about "immigration" by those looking
to avoid a true debate on the issues, people like to reframe the "war" in
Iraq as being about the "war" on terrorism.

The reality is that one can be for the "war" on terrorism w/o being for
the "war" in Iraq. In fact, there are those of us that have a heightened
concern about our waste of time and resources in Iraq precisely because
we've this other "war" to which we should be paying attention.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether you're willing to look
past the silly PR on the news every day (primarily in politicians'
speeches) and actually see the situation in Iraq for what it is distinct
from the situation with terrorism. Yes, there are insurgents in Iraq
today using terrorist techniques. But that's largely a civil war amongst
its own population. We didn't cause that, but we did permit it. And we
should do something about it...although, to be honest, I'm not sure that
we can do enough. Can a central government be sufficiently strong to
govern in the face of the sectarian tensions w/o simply recreating the
horrors of the Saddam regime?

But this has nothing to do with the [more important, in my opinion] "war"
that we should be fighting on terrorism.

Of course, neither action is truly a "war" in the conventional sense.
Both really should be seen more as police actions. In Iraq, we're trying
to enforce a peace between sectarian groups (thus "peace officers" {8^).
In the case of the terrorists, the conflict is largely not one of applied
military force but instead tracking, identifying, and locating the
individuals involved. This is more the task of a police officer than a
soldier (though of course "intelligence services" play a role either way).

There may be some real wars in our "war" on terrorism. Afghanistan was
one, and I suspect it's not the last. But the overall process isn't
really a "war" (though perhaps "cold war" as a description might work).

- Andrew