War?

Blog - Agree or disagree on this book's position about war.

Sometimes war is necessary. Sometimes some country will just try to take over another without any chance of working things out. At that point you have two options: roll over and let them take over, or fight back. Fighting back means war, rolling over means submitting yourself to the complete will of another country. I believe that you have the right to fight back. This right should be contingent, however, on there being no other viable courses of action. This right should be contingent on there being no competing interests but the genuine sense of freedom in life. This is where the problems of war lie - in the competing interests. War spawns many things, one of which is war industries. War industries become huge, and they literally take over the political control of a war. Lobbyists, pressure, connections, they all play a role in keeping a country in a war. These companies are supposed to make money, and nothing is easier to make money off of then a fearful nation. In America, this has been the unfortunate reality since the Vietnam War. It has been especially evident in the current War in Afghanistan. The book basically takes on this problem when it talks about the "us vs. them" notion of the upper class getting involved in wars and then sending the lower class to fight them. And equally as upsetting is the brutality of war, the lives destroyed because of somebody else's interests. All that is to say that, I agree with the book's position on war. But sometimes war is necessary. Until every country in the world is focused on peace, then no country can focus on peace. The ultimate solution I can think of right now, is that countries should remain peaceful unless, and this is a big unless, their freedom is being explicitly challenged. Then they have the right, and this should be the only purpose and outcome of war, to defend themselves in the most effective, quickest, and least gruesome way. Ideally, this notion would put to rest war forever.