Can there be a just war?

[M.Dancer]

  ScottSA said:

  August1991 said:

Countries don't win wars. Individual soldiers do. (I know that the soldiers are organized but the question about which country won a war is as silly as which straw broke the camel's back.)

Individual soldiers from Russia, America, Canada, Britain and France - to name a few countries - fought the Nazis. After the fact, with hindsight, I would not question the usefulness of any individual soldier's efforts.

Russia or America didn't defeat Hitler. Individuals did.

Devoid of all the trappings of the modern state, the war waged by individuals would more have resembled a classic Hobbesian war of all against all, and would have no means of ending itself short of the total genocide of one side or another.

Devoid of all that, war waged by individuals would resemble a riot.

[ScottSA]

  M.Dancer said:

  ScottSA said:

  August1991 said:

Countries don't win wars. Individual soldiers do. (I know that the soldiers are organized but the question about which country won a war is as silly as which straw broke the camel's back.)

Individual soldiers from Russia, America, Canada, Britain and France - to name a few countries - fought the Nazis. After the fact, with hindsight, I would not question the usefulness of any individual soldier's efforts.

Russia or America didn't defeat Hitler. Individuals did.

Devoid of all the trappings of the modern state, the war waged by individuals would more have resembled a classic Hobbesian war of all against all, and would have no means of ending itself short of the total genocide of one side or another.

Devoid of all that, war waged by individuals would resemble a riot.

World Riot II just doesn't have that heroic ring to it...sounds more like saturday night WWF or something.

[August1991]

  ScottSA said:

Well I think it's safe to suggest that the organization of those individual soldiers had some bearing on who won. Beyond that, the organization of war production, the national economies, national politics, and a host of macro factors went into deciding who won.

The terms "organization", "economy" and "politics" are ultimately composed of individuals. So before you start using kitsch, pseudo-sophisticated terms such as "macro factors", you better have a good grasp of how the individual matters.

My point was to say that I wouldn't judge, after the fact, the relative importance of a navigator in a bomber over Germany and a tank commander on the Eastern front in the defeat of the Nazis. Both individuals contributed a small, almost imperceptible effort. It was the collective result of these individual efforts that finally defeated the enemy.

[M.Dancer]

  August1991 said:

  ScottSA said:

Well I think it's safe to suggest that the organization of those individual soldiers had some bearing on who won. Beyond that, the organization of war production, the national economies, national politics, and a host of macro factors went into deciding who won.

The terms "organization", "economy" and "politics" are ultimately composed of individuals. So before you start using kitsch, pseudo-sophisticated terms such as "macro factors", you better have a good grasp of how the individual matters.

My point was to say that I wouldn't judge, after the fact, the relative importance of a navigator in a bomber over Germany and a tank commander on the Eastern front in the defeat of the Nazis. Both individuals contributed a small, almost imperceptible effort. It was the collective result of these individual efforts that finally defeated the enemy.

So does that mean that Nazi Germany didn't commit war crimes, that nazi germans did.....or that Germany didn't lose the war, the Germans did?

....I think the point is moot to the point of sillyness....

[ScottSA]

  August1991 said:

  ScottSA said:

Well I think it's safe to suggest that the organization of those individual soldiers had some bearing on who won. Beyond that, the organization of war production, the national economies, national politics, and a host of macro factors went into deciding who won.

The terms "organization", "economy" and "politics" are ultimately composed of individuals. So before you start using kitsch, pseudo-sophisticated terms such as "macro factors", you better have a good grasp of how the individual matters.

My point was to say that I wouldn't judge, after the fact, the relative importance of a navigator in a bomber over Germany and a tank commander on the Eastern front in the defeat of the Nazis. Both individuals contributed a small, almost imperceptible effort. It was the collective result of these individual efforts that finally defeated the enemy.

But that's like saying that a human body doesn't really exist because it's a collection of atoms, molecules etc. Sure, it's marginally true I suppose, but the body in question would probably argue the case with you.

[Mad_Michael]

  M.Dancer said:

So does that mean that Nazi Germany didn't commit war crimes, that nazi germans did.....or that Germany didn't lose the war, the Germans did?

....I think the point is moot to the point of sillyness....

Indeed. I'm inclined to agree. Collective entities can and do exist and can be guilty of facilitating or encouraging the committing of crimes.

[Rue]

  FascistLibertarian said:

I do not think there has ever been a just war.

War is horrible and people on both sides do awful things.

There have been wars that had to be fought, but no war is 'just'.

Well I have to agree with you. For example, I think we would all agree World War Two was just in the sense that Hitler had to be stopped. But sometimes to do the just thing we have to do unjust things such as those Dresden bombings, or the killing of soldiers who threw their hands up in surrender, or when soldiers on the anti-Nazi side raped civilians. Yes in war, even the so called "just" side can engage in war crimes. I believe that is your point.

I think in today's world, we do not see conventional warfare anymore. What we see are civilians who fuse two identities-a civilian one with a guerilla warrior one. The problem is these fused entities now engage in terror. They kill civilians. They do not wear uniforms. They use civilians as shields.

A conventional army when fighting them, necessarily to survive is dragged to their level.

We live in a world where people justify terrorism as just and necessary and morally acceptable. It is justified by people who claim they have no other way to express themselves.

I personally believe no act of terror is just or can be justified.

In regards to war, I find the conventions we humans have drafted to try define how to conduct war and make it "civilized" is absurd.

The only just wars I can think of are back in Africa, when tribes used to fight, they would simply dance and gesture and never kill each other and acts of murder to express a political will was very rare.

I thinkt he vast majority of humans have shown, even in wars where there seems to be one side with a moral cause, the distinction between right and wrong, soon becomes distorted and clouded.

I think for example, the longer American soldiers stay in Iraq, exposed to an invisible enemy constantly killing its soldiers, the more likely it gets caught up in a cloud of confusion making it impossible to see who its enemy really is, resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians which in turn fuel terrorists.

I think in the Palestine-Israel conflict, each side has equal moral right to independence but this has become distorted and misappropriated by terrorists whose motus opperendi is to get civilians on either side to believe they are each other's enemiesn and that they can't possibly be the same or want the same things.

To me the only thing I know about war and violence is it makes everyone bleed the exact same way.