Krypsyn: The point of war is to kill people and break things. I think this is already an irrational act. Trying to set rules for how irrational it should be seems rather futile. In the end, the goal of any war is to win, and if you start to lose you will be more and more likely to break any rules that are set on you regardless.

War sucks, I think everyone agrees with this. Deciding how bad it should suck seems more academic than practical.

Krypsyn: Well, that is what war is all about: to kill people and break things. Sure, folks can come up with fancy rules, such as the Just War Doctrine, where combatants and innocents are defined. However, people are going to get hurt in war. Even Innocents. Even Non-combatants.

It becomes even more cloudy when one tries to determine exactly WHO is an innocent or non-combatant. I small child with a bomb attached to her chest is certainly an innocent, but is she a combatant? Einstein and the rest of the Manhattan Project were certainly non-combatants, but were they truly innocent?

I am against war. Even taking out the emotional and moral objections of killing potential innocents, destroying human and physical capital with reckless abandon is no way to manage a planet with finite resources. However, war is a fact of human nature, ever since we, as humans, first started walking upright and forming tribes. The 'Us vs. Them' mentality is as much a product of Darwinist Evolution as our opposable thumbs.

Arguing that people die in wars is not an valid argument against killing an evil person. Wars will occur into the foreseeable future, and innocents WILL die, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't rid the Earth of evil whenever and where ever we find it.

Or, perhaps I miss your point. If I have, I apologize.

Krypsyn: The point of war is to kill people and break things.

ilves: Anyone else think that this really isn't as big of a deal as the media is making it out to be (at least in the US). Yes, he was in charge of the attacks 10 years ago, but the Taliban and Al Qaeda are pretty dispersed and do not really follow a big chain of command or anything. This is a symbolic victory, yes, but I don't think its going to have much of a real world impact on anything.

ChaunceyK: Great googly-moogly, is this thread still going?!

Actually, I'm not surprised. Such a big event as the killing of Bin-Laden was bound to stir up long-winded threads across the internet...I just wanted a reason to say "great googly-moogly."

:-)

robobrien: Try saying 'googly-great-moogly' five times really fast. Yep, thats what i've got planned for the next few minutes.

nmillar: I agree that ridding the Earth of evil is a good thing, but celebrating the death (which is the main thing I'm against) is going to incite yet more hatred from Al Queda and their sympathizers. And if Bin Laden is to be given the "evil" tag (which again, I agree with), then surely those who who were involved in the deliberate killing of innocents in Iraq should be tarred with the same brush?

predcon: No, the act of war is killing people and breaking things. Many wars have had many different "points". Or rather, many variations on a few.

Krypsyn: The trouble is that hard line Muslims believe that all other peoples must convert or, failing that, they must perish. Seriously, that is what they are taught, and it is what they believe. To them, there is no such thing as an 'innocent', just those that believe what they believe. This is what is meant by "Muslim extremists"; those few radicals that have no moral problems using human shields, and for whom collateral damage is inconsequential. These are the people we fight.


Krypsyn: It depends if you are talking about the reasons for going to war (ad bellum) or the action taken during war (in bello).

I was speaking of while in war the point is to win. This requires killing people and blowing stuff up, generally speaking. Thus the point of war, DURING the war, is in effect to kill people and break things.

However, the point of war, in the sense of why a country goes to war to begin with, is general not to kill people and break things. You are correct there. It is generally over territory, resources, or ideas.

This is generally where I go to for this type of discussion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War

Krypsyn: The trouble is that hard line Muslims believe that all other peoples must convert or, failing that, they must perish. Seriously, that is what they are taught, and it is what they believe. To them, there is no such thing as an 'innocent', just those that believe what they believe. This is what is meant by "Muslim extremists"; those few radicals that have no moral problems using human shields, and for whom collateral damage is inconsequential. These are the people we fight.

predcon: I'm not arguing about what war is. I'm arguing the lexicography of "point".

Siannah: ... exchange the "hard line muslims" and "muslim extremists" and insert right-winged conservatives. What did you get? The same radicals only on the other side?

We know what atrocities have been and still are done in war. On both sides. Yet still I wish one would remember movies like Platoon, and how little it takes for the "good guys fighting evil" to become a radical without "moral problems". It doesn't make an action better, doing it under a different flag.

Siannah: ... exchange the "hard line muslims" and "muslim extremists" and insert right-winged conservatives. What did you get? The same radicals only on the other side?