[angelbaby_14 (OP)]

if America is always talking about world peace, then why is it always when we go to war and win?

angel

[simeonie]

Sometimes countrys have to go to war to resotre peace

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-__- my website!!!!
http://www.simeonie.co.uk
has forums too!
Think about it! lolz

[memasa]

I don't wanna sound rude, but... *ahem* ...money talks... sometimes.

And sometimes they just wanna get rid of the communists... *ahem* And did they win?

[DoctorBeaver]

It depends what sort of peace you're talking about. America wants to enforce its own kind of peace on the rest of the world. Unfortunately for them not all the rest of the world wants the McDonalds-and-Disneyland kind of peace.... they just want to be LEFT IN PEACE.
As much as I like Americans I do have 1 problem with them (apart from their total ignorance of world geography [] )and that is that they don't seem able to grasp the fact that not everyone envies Americans or wants to live in a pseudo-American society.
Please don't think I'm implying that the US is a Nazi state but Hitler & Co engendered the same sense of superiority in the German people prior to WWII.
Patriotism is all very well but when you're brainwashed from the cradle into believing yours is the greatest country in the world it must be difficult to give credence to any other way of life. So, if you believe that every in other countries wants to be like you it follows, therefore, that it must the governments in those countries that are preventing them from being so. Solution? Get rid of the governments. Simple really, isn't it!

[memasa]

DoctorBeaver: Yay!

[Ultima]

quote:Sometimes countrys have to go to war to resotre peace

Classy, what do countries do when they want to go to war with some people? Give them food and money?

War only ever restores power not peace. Dominance over another is not peace, its control!

Some of what Doctor Beaver said is very true, but it's not just America, any rich well to do nation has this kind of social rot, check out the rise of chavs and nationalism in the UK! "Those damn xxxx's taking our jobs" "This is Britain, it's not part of Europe!". My answer to that is, the "working class" are just dossing on benefits and aren't trying for jobs anymore; people from poorer countries are prepared to work as hard as it takes. Sadly no matter what you say Britain is geographically part of Europe, it's about time people wised up to this. Ireland embraced the euro and has one of the fastest growing economies around.

On a wider scale we are all part of this PLANET, why we can't just get along and accept that as long as humans are the animal they are, we are going to differ on views and ideas on every level of thinking.

Peace comes from understanding, acceptance, and most of all no hostilities towards anybody! It's never gunna happen. One person will always be there to fowl up any balance for the rest of us.

wOw the world spins?

[chimera]

War is the dirty face of economy. Any military dispute has an economic goal at heart, or is in revenge for a previous conflict that did. This includes 'territorial' wars, since the territory in question mostly happens to be the sole producer in the region of something economically vital.

Play a very very good strategy game like Rome:Total War, and you'll find this is totally true, and you cannot fight a proper war without a viable economy, either - they are two faces of one and the same driving force, war is just the part that does not take no for an answer.

added: I actually like R:TW a lot because you cannot really win the game by only fighting battles, although being good at that too, is a large bonus, of course. Without your economy being run soundly you cannot even build armies. Kids that only want to smash enemies get frustrated really fast with the game on higher levels exactly because it IS a game of economy more than just doing battle.

Maybe 'warconomy' would be a useful neologism here. Oh, and military spokesmen will of course always deny this. Greed is not an officially acceptable casus belli. They would have to rephrase that to something more ideologically in step with current policy.

[NLJB]

BECAUSE WE HAVE  A JACK*** LEADER WHO GOES BYE THE NAME OF BUSH!!!!!!! FRIGGIN CONGRESS DIDN'T EVEN DECLARE WAR SO TECHNICALLY WERE NOT EVEN AT WAR!!!!!!!!
GEEZ I HATE BUSH

Peace-
Nina

[David Sparkman]

Yea, well Congress has become very unwieldy. Did they declare war in Korea? In Vietnam? In Kuwait? In Iraq? of course not. They passed the buck to the then President. In fact, weren't Roosevelt’s words something like asking congress to acknowledge that a state of war exists between the US and Japan? Wimps the lot of them!

The Supreme Court overturns laws of Congress, so congress cries about it instead of calling for impeachment hearings. Congress does not and will not exercise their given powers, and that is mucking up the whole government thing. I am not pushing for or against any one historic decision, just that Congress has not been able to actively make those decisions so it has fallen on the Supreme Court or on the President to take action. And then of course, take the criticism for that decision that Congress would not make.

Congress is beholding to so many interest groups, and so busy shoveling out my tax dollars to them, that they don't have the time to simply taxes or fix Social Security. Personally, I am going the S-Corp way so that I can minimize my SS taxes. (Pay myself $200 per week and take the rest as profits with no SS or Medicaid deductions) Why invest in a retirement account that pays no interest and penalizes you if you work when you should be retired?

Nina you grumble about Bush. He was elected to do what he is doing. Congress was elected to do what they are not doing. (Ok Bush isn't doing anything about the Mexican boarder.) And the Supreme Court is making up the law as it goes. Not really the government my 5th great grandfathers fought for.


David

[NLJB]

I do more than grumble.....

"We will solve this problem because we are problen solvers"-President Bush in responce to Hurricane Katrina (isn't he articulate?!)

[neilep]

quote:Originally posted by NLJB

BECAUSE WE HAVE  A JACK*** LEADER WHO GOES BYE THE NAME OF BUSH!!!!!!! FRIGGIN CONGRESS DIDN'T EVEN DECLARE WAR SO TECHNICALLY WERE NOT EVEN AT WAR!!!!!!!!
GEEZ I HATE BUSH

Peace-
Nina

Nina....do you like Bush ?[]

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[NLJB]

haha

"We will solve this problem because we are problen solvers"-President Bush in responce to Hurricane Katrina (isn't he articulate?!)

[David Sparkman]

Hmmm, Nina is an anarcist? Or does she prefer playboy Clinton who enriched himself by pardoning rich people?[}:)]

Hard to tell, there are a lot of partisin peeps running around praising their guy instead of being analytical []

Me, I'm just jaded by it all. You get in power you are surrounded by those who want to get rich on the public dollar. So if you associate with crooks, soon you become one too. The honest politician is the one who once bought, stays bought [!]

David

[NLJB]

I perfer Cylical if you don't mind...Clinton was a good president, and the people liked him...his support rate was high all through his impeachment trial (I contrast to Bush...): Which he won, personally I don't think any politician is "ideal" considering the reasons they become politicians.... And no I am not a partisan "peep".
I admit I do exaggerate my dissatisfaction for Bush...But I do think he is not running the country well at all, he is not benefitting anyone considering most of our allys abandoned us and were at war with a country we were trying to help? In addition he is supporting laws that banning moral issues that if they were passed would be unconstituianal. hmmmm.... oh yeah and your "5th great grandfathers" are the reason are government is so dysfunctional now...if they hadn't been so paranoid about tyranny of Britain (No offense Brits) they wouldn't have made it so hard for the government to function.  Plus how do you know they fought in the Revolutionary war: Did you look up your family tree or something? hehe



-"science |?s??ns| noun the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment"- the dictionary

[David Sparkman]

Yea I dug up the roots. Edward Sparkman and Joseph Cummings both served in the Continental Army, Joseph from Virginal and Edward from North Carolina.

About 30 to 40 percent of England was sympathetic to the Americans before the war. King George also didn't want to raise a large army to fight the war, so paid mercenaries to do the dirty work. Kept his pole numbers higher. Toward the end of the war, he just couldn't afford to support the armies over there, and his pole numbers were way down. So he cut his looses, and signed the peace treaty.

We see that today in the war in Iraq. Bush spent his popularity capital on the war there. I can agree with the premise that democracies in the Middle East would be concentrating more on the good of their citizens and less on making trouble for the rest of the world. That would be good for Syria, Iraq and Iran. Though this adventure has not been the easy success the Administration dreamed, it might change the future of the Middle East for the better, as more people there want more freedom.

WWII had some real bad decisions with lots of loss of life. The Brits probably have forgotten about Montgomery's stupid plan to parachute behind enemy lines, and the unwillingness of American ships and planes to take risks lead to a very pitched battle at Normandy. (Only one destroyer moved into 1500 yard range to battle the hardend gun emplacements, and only 4 planes dove down to beach level to take on machine gun nests.) Lots of poor planning, but that is the way most wars go. So I am still open to see what happens in Iraq. I notice capitalism is alive and well in Iraq with the money rapidly flowing into the politicians pockets.

Some historians say the Vietnam War prevented a war in Europe. It will take a long time to evaluate the success or failure of this administration.

David

[fidocancan]

Originally posted by angelbaby_14

if America is always talking about world peace, then why is it always when we go to war and win?

hi
angelbaby
it seems to me, we can't have worldpeace if we still think from a national perspective, whether american or british or iraqi, etc.
i mean, imagine if your left hand and right hand were different, or arms and legs, and you wanted to play frisbee or clean your teeth or something. and, of course, they are different; going to war just results in inefficiency and malcoordination.
but here's a question which you could help me out on. i would like to find a forum where we can discuss worldpeace in such a manner that at the end of it, we feel better about it, better equipped, more positive, perhaps even with a real sense of power.
has this discussion topic helped you?
really, i am interested in your response, and anyone else here who has contributed here.

[another_someone]

How about the following premise: that perpetual world peace would be a bad thing.

The problem we have is that we have gotten too good, and too destructive with war, but war has always been a part of human society, and is an extention of social evolution.  War is the ultimate way in which countries and societies compete with each other, and the alternative to competition is monopoly (or at least a cartel).

True, one does have a set of rules of war, and one can adjust those rules of war to some extent, but at the end of the day, those rules will be unenforceable if the prevent someone from winning a war who might otherwise be able to win a war.

War is horrible, but then cancer is horrible, but both are natural.  Maybe, one day, we might be able to prevent all cancers, but we will not be able to prevent deaths by one means or another.  Similarly, we may be able to change the nature of war, but not the fact of war.

Wars exist at many levels, from one man murdering another, to gangland violence, to countries killing each others citizens.  They are all part of the same spectrum, and we have not been able to stop any of it, from the simple homicide, to the gangland killings, to full scale total warfare.  This does not mean that we cannot limit these actions (we do have laws against murder, and we have fewer murders than we might otherwise have), but we have never been able to, nor ever shall, prevent one human being killing another.  Nor would the level of social control we would need to absolutely prevent all homicide be in the interest of humanity.  Homicide is the price we pay for freedom.  War too, is a price we pay for national freedom, and to abolish that national freedom would leave us in a world that, even if it were a tolerable world (and that is something that is open to debate), would be a would that could not evolve or develop further than it had reached, because it would lack the freedom to change.

[fidocancan]

quote:Originally posted by another_someone

How about the following premise: that perpetual world peace would be a bad thing.
[/br]

yes, i have read your thoughts, and they are reasonable enough. i am not sure if the millions who are suffering from our exploitation of their resources would agree, or have the opportunity to disagree.
i am fortunate, i have never had to live close to any form of extreme exploitation, or open warfare.
an equivalent premise might be: world peace may not abolish aggression and conflict, but it may stop institutional violence and thus allows each and every one of us the opportunity to consider such thoughts and participate in this discussions on this forum... you know, to make it fair.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by fidocancan


yes, i have read your thoughts, and they are reasonable enough. i am not sure if the millions who are suffering from our exploitation of their resources would agree, or have the opportunity to disagree. i am fortunate, i have never had to live close to any form of extreme exploitation, or open warfare.

But war works both ways - it is both a means of imposing oppression, but is also often the only effective way to rid oneself of the yoke of oppression.

Often, those who start by using war to shake off an oppression, having gained their rightful objective, and their confidence in war, will then continue to exploit the tool of war to oppress others, and so the cycle will continue.  But, to stop this cycle, one would have to accept that there is no solution to many of those oppressed today.

quote:Originally posted by fidocancan


an equivalent premise might be: world peace may not abolish aggression and conflict, but it may stop institutional violence and thus allows each and every one of us the opportunity to consider such thoughts and participate in this discussions on this forum... you know, to make it fair.

What do you regard as 'institutional violence'?

There may be differences of scale, but how is the violence of a police officer shooting a criminal, possibly with total justification, any less 'institutional violence' than a soldier killing an enemy soldier?

[harrypalmer]

This is a debate that no one can win, as there isnt a right answer.

Sometimes war is necessary although its a wicked waste of life, and always with regret. War is sometimes entered into too easily or under false pretences. The dodgy dossier episode was a hugely insulting and disgraceful episode.

Wars will always happen. Humans are tribal and will always fight over resources, just like our chimpanzee cousins who are worryingly similar is some of their habits! some say Chimps have even invaded some of our positions of power, although I cant really expand on that one