[Pseudoscience-is-malarkey (OP)]

Winston Churchill deplored draft dodgers, as did a few of the King Edwards and Richard Nixon and a few others. In this article, published in 1934, a reporter interviewed one of my cities most prominent citizens: my great-great-grandfather, a german immigrant and boyhood friend of interwar german president Friedrich Ebert, said he left Germany in 1890 because he did not want to "wear the Kaiser's frock".

[Bored chemist]

What would happen if they had a war, but nobody went?

[alancalverd]

Peace would break out.

Problem is that homo notverysapiens places a high value on loyalty and consistency, so having made a contract to lay down your life for Queen and Country, most soldiers think this also extends to increasing the popularity of elected politicians regardless of the merit of their case.  I just watched "Official Secrets", the story of Katherine Gun who challenged the legality of the Iraq invasion, and won her case, sadly too late to stop the farce that re-elected the idiot president and the worst prime minister after Thatcher.   

The most convinced and convincing pacifists I have met have been members of the armed services. Unlike politicians, they study and train to avoid killing people and causing damage unnecessarily. Tearing holes in the sky and lobbing shells off ships is great fun but doesn't make you any friends. Rather like my favorite surgeon who said "Any fool can cut. A surgeon knows what and when to not cut."   

[Bored chemist]

I was always a bit wary of the idea of a "draft"- if people don't volunteer to fight for the country, perhaps it's because the idea of a country isn't really worth fighting for.

[alancalverd]

Yes and no. I'd happily kill anyone who threatened to abolish cricket and flat beer, but I don't have a moral right to impose either on foreigners, however boring and tasteless their summer entertainment, by armed conflict. Defence of the realm is essential, offence is rarely justified. Even when you can see rank injustice in a foreign country, it is worth remembering that apartheid wasn't  defeated by invasion, but by civilised nations boycotting rugby, cricket and grapefruit.

[Pseudoscience-is-malarkey (OP)]

Slightly off-topic, but do any of you think Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator?

[alancalverd]

Almost certainly.

But truth is a strange thing. Prime Minister Tony B Liar told us that the Iraq invasion wasn't about regime change, and two weeks later Foreign Secretary Jack Man O'Straw said it was. Even though they were career politicians, they can't both have been lying, surely?

Not that we will ever know. In the course of 7 years of vastly expensive public inquiry, Lord Chilcot never actually asked them which one was lying. Far be it from me to suspect either of telling the truth.

[Petrochemicals]

Slightly off-topic, but do any of you think Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator?

Yes, but so where the UN, USA and the coalition. Dead children do not make you popular and lead to liberal societies and enlightenment, see germany post ww1 due to reparations and the crash, they sort of make Hitler look good.

[alancalverd]

It wasn't all bad. Halliburton shares rose spectacularly which is why Dick Cheney (former CEO of Halliburton) started the war. And guess who got the contract to supply all the logistics and support services, right down to emergency rations, to the US military,  and rebuild the oilfields afterwards?   

I often wondered why the Coalition gave 3 months notice of intent to invade (not an ultimatum or threat, as in Desert Storm, but precise notice of an irrevocable decision). Not the best military tactic, but time to get the contracts sewn up before the killing started. That's not war, it's murder.

[arjeet45o]

Thx for share