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What atheists REALLY think of the ethics of warfare

Started by Zarathustra, December 03, 2008, 11:44:14 AM

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DennisK

Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"
Quote from: "Willravel"War and military are self-sustaining systems of violence, greed, and hatred. There is absolutely no use for violence against other human beings.

Yet curiously sheer naked violence has resolved more issues in our history than any other thing.

Kyu

I'm not following.  Can you elaborate?
"If you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality." -Halton Arp

Kyuuketsuki

Quote from: "DennisK"
Quote from: "Kyuuketsuki"
Quote from: "Willravel"War and military are self-sustaining systems of violence, greed, and hatred. There is absolutely no use for violence against other human beings.

Yet curiously sheer naked violence has resolved more issues in our history than any other thing.

Kyu

I'm not following.  Can you elaborate?

A simple example .. the second world war. What solved it? It wasn't talking. It wasn't pacifism. It was the willingness of the Allies to put up against the Axis powers an equivalent or superior force to beat them back to where they should be. The solution to the problem of the Nazi's and other Axis powers aggression was violence, sheer naked violence ... it may not have been the solution that some wanted (although I think a lot of this is about looking back and imagining we could have done it different or better), it may even have been a very poor solution (it's entirely debatable) but it was a solution and it changed the world in ways we can only imagine (because we have no real idea what the world would have been had we not gone head to head with the Axis powers).

Detestable though wars are they solve problems for one side or the other.

Kyu
James C. Rocks: UK Tech Portal & Science, Just Science

[size=150]Not Long For This Forum [/size]

Tanker

QuoteJust a stupid question. When was the last time that the USA fought a war to protect its own people? As far as I can remember that was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, but even then the US citizens were pretty safe on the mainland. Anyway the reasons to start a war yourself are never justified. When you are under attack you are allowed to protect yourself, but that doesn't give you any rights to mass murder innocent civilians (like the bombing of Dresden in 1945). Funny that with all the modern high precision weapon technologies in place we seem to kill more civilians than ever before. Nowadays 90% of all casualties in modern warfare are innocent bystanders, who have nothing to do with the "evil" acts of their leaders.I find it therefore disgusting that especially the USA didn't sign the treaties to ban landmines and cluster bombs. BTW when is a leader of a country evil enough to justify a war against him? As far as I can see only when he is weak enough and his country possesses a lot of oil for us to grab. More evil dictators than Saddam Hussein are still in power today (like Mugabe in Zimbabwe) and we even support dictators like Alyaksandr Lukashenka in Belarus as well as the Israelian Apartheid regime. What is so moral about that? Whenever there are some real atrocities going on in the world, we just keep our eyes shut and do nothing.

Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST, When a forigin nation attacks your homeland then you attack them back it IS to protect your own people. second the Japanes had thier sites set on everything in the pacific rim (That includes the entire west coast of North America) so if we had let them do thier thing I would be speaking Japanes right now. The number of civilain casualties in Iraq and Afganistan compred to a war with similar weight of paylaods and time spent fighting is ridiculus low compared to most or possibly any war before it, And your number of 90% is arbitrary and way way off I would estimate between 5 and 20% depending on the war and timeframe within it. The US army does not use ANY land mines it does use claymore but those are almost always command detonated ie: a person hits the clacker on a visually identified target.I can' speak on cluster bombs because I wasen't in the Air Force.
 Atrocities do happen in war a sad fact of them but no one in the US military is working to make them happen a huge portion of military training is specificly to prevent them. Have I seen innocents die? Yes I have, almost all of them were caused by insugents I have even seen a sad precious few killed by Americans, and I can assure you It was not on purpose, and it was during a fire fight they shoud not have been trying to cross.

Becarefull not to judge an entire country by one government. There are times in everyone country they feel shame over but it woulden't be fair to hold it's entire population to that low standard forever. (there were some serious crimes against humanity, oh about 60 years ago, I sure certian people woulden't want to be the only governmet they were remembered for.)

(Let me get this clear I do not now or have ever agreed with the war in Iraq. I did fight there, but soldiers don't choose their fights, they simply go when and where they are told.)
"I'd rather die the go to heaven" - William Murderface Murderface  Murderface-

I've been in fox holes, I'm still an atheist -Me-

God is a cake, and we all know what the cake is.

(my spelling, grammer, and punctuation suck, I know, but regardless of how much I read they haven't improved much since grade school. It's actually a bit of a family joke.

Zarathustra

Quote from: "Tanker"Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,
Where? When?
"Man does not draw his laws from nature, but impose them upon nature" - Kant
[size=85]English is not my native language, so please don't attack my grammar, attack my message instead[/size]

Whitney

I am personally a pacifist and would only use violence for self defense.  However, I realize that with the way the world is organized right now that the government needs to have a military and that sometimes that military needs to be used for non-self defensive actions.  For instance, it's not self defense to go help some other country that is getting attacked but can't fully defend...but it is necessary if we want to keep our allies in case we are attacked (and it's arguably morally necessary to help to defend the defenseless).

That said, I think a lot of the USA's military involvement is not justified and if everyone could just mind their own business and try to work together we wouldn't need military people.  Yet, we all know that is never going to happen.

Whitney

Quote from: "Zarathustra"
Quote from: "Tanker"Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,
Where? When?

That's news to me too.  Why are we going after those Al-Qaeda people?   ;)

Tanker

QuoteTanker wrote:

Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,

Where? When?

I don't know, how about New York City Sept, 11 2001.

(note i did NOT say Iraq)
"I'd rather die the go to heaven" - William Murderface Murderface  Murderface-

I've been in fox holes, I'm still an atheist -Me-

God is a cake, and we all know what the cake is.

(my spelling, grammer, and punctuation suck, I know, but regardless of how much I read they haven't improved much since grade school. It's actually a bit of a family joke.

Zarathustra

Quote from: "Tanker"
QuoteTanker wrote:

Firstly America was attacked by the government of Afganistan FIRST,

Where? When?

I don't know, how about New York City Sept, 11 2001.

(note i did NOT say Iraq)
Are you seriously claiming, that 9/11 was carried out by the government of Afghanistan????
"Man does not draw his laws from nature, but impose them upon nature" - Kant
[size=85]English is not my native language, so please don't attack my grammar, attack my message instead[/size]

Tom62

As far as I know the US was never attacked by the Afghan government, but by a terrorist group that had strong ties with Saudi Arabia. After  9/11 the Taliban  provided the US with important information of the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, because they were afraid that the US would retaliate the 9/11 attack on them instead of on Al Qaeda (which of course they did).  Any way there was no attack on the US by the Afghan government, because there was no Afghan government.. There were just a couple of warlords fighting among themselves, with no means at all to to any harm to the US people.

Regarding civilian casualties caused by warfare, some facts speak for themselves. In WW-I there were approx 10 million military and 9 million civilian deaths. In  Vietnam there were already twice as much civilians (2 million)  killed than Vietnamese soldiers (1.1 million). Regarding the Iraqi war there was some major progress made in killing civilians instead of soldiers. Since the US invasion approx. 30 to 100 thousand Iraqi soldiers died, while the civilian casualties are estimated to be between 650 thousand and one million. There have been many studies about the body count, but none of them are conclusive because there are no official death records available. What is sure however is that the Iraqi civilians suffered (and are still suffering) massively since the US invasion. BTW, here is an interesting article about how to keep the US population ignorant about the Iraqi death tolls (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/05-2).

I don't blame the common soldier who is sent to some shitty country and put his/her own life in grave danger. And like you said, everyone's country has done some bad things that they'd like to forget. So I don't hold any grunge against the people of the USA either. I only hope that we learn from our mistakes and change the world into a better place.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Zarathustra

Quote from: "Tom62"As far as I know the US was never attacked by the Afghan government, but by a terrorist group that had strong ties with Saudi Arabia. After  9/11 the Taliban  provided the US with important information of the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, because they were afraid that the US would retaliate the 9/11 attack on them instead of on Al Qaeda (which of course they did).  Any way there was no attack on the US by the Afghan government, because there was no Afghan government.. There were just a couple of warlords fighting among themselves, with no means at all to to any harm to the US people.

Regarding civilian casualties caused by warfare, some facts speak for themselves. In WW-I there were approx 10 million military and 9 million civilian deaths. In  Vietnam there were already twice as much civilians (2 million)  killed than Vietnamese soldiers (1.1 million). Regarding the Iraqi war there was some major progress made in killing civilians instead of soldiers. Since the US invasion approx. 30 to 100 thousand Iraqi soldiers died, while the civilian casualties are estimated to be between 650 thousand and one million. There have been many studies about the body count, but none of them are conclusive because there are no official death records available. What is sure however is that the Iraqi civilians suffered (and are still suffering) massively since the US invasion. BTW, here is an interesting article about how to keep the US population ignorant about the Iraqi death tolls (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/11/05-2).

I don't blame the common soldier who is sent to some shitty country and put his/her own life in grave danger. And like you said, everyone's country has done some bad things that they'd like to forget. So I don't hold any grunge against the people of the USA either. I only hope that we learn from our mistakes and change the world into a better place.
Now here was a great piece of correct info, thanks  :lol:  Especially for the commondreams article.
Tanker: You really need to get your facts straight.
"Man does not draw his laws from nature, but impose them upon nature" - Kant
[size=85]English is not my native language, so please don't attack my grammar, attack my message instead[/size]

Tanker

The article you linked to did not have the stats you posted please post the right one.

According to that logic of the stats you posted I hav killed 70 or so civilians, wow thats funny since I don't remember killing a single one, and while I saw many people die most were combatants from either side. Most of the civillain causualties are from direct murder by insurgents not as colateral damage during a fight. What do you think a Sunni setting off a bomb in Shia market with no Americans around should be counted as civillain Iraqvwar casualties or one religious group killing another. I don't put to much stock in statistic because depending on the statistic you use they can be made to say anything. My statements are from personal observations. Which is more then most people have when they post arbitrary statistics on a web site. While you can' totally discount statistic I would recomend finding a wide range of results from a varity of sources and finding an average. Rather then finding the statistic with the worst results to ry and prove your point. I have seen statistics that put civial causulties between 13,000 and 22,000, but again that is arbitrary.

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/information.shtml
 The above url links to UN resolutions and sactions against the Taliban government starting in 1999 for their continue support and protection of Al-Qaida within the border of afganistan. While the Al-Qaida wasen't a recogonised part of the Afgani govenment It was a known, protected, and encouraged element within their country. When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.
"I'd rather die the go to heaven" - William Murderface Murderface  Murderface-

I've been in fox holes, I'm still an atheist -Me-

God is a cake, and we all know what the cake is.

(my spelling, grammer, and punctuation suck, I know, but regardless of how much I read they haven't improved much since grade school. It's actually a bit of a family joke.

karadan

I wasn't going to post in this thread because I don't like the title. I can see no ethics with warfare whatsoever. War is not ethical. War is the last (or sometimes quite insanely the first) resort. War represents the breakdown of the usual human ethics gradient and as far as I'm concerned, wars have been started due to the need for the acquisition of power - nothing else. Yes, nations have to sometimes defend themselves from an aggressor but that war will have been started because of someone's notion of the expansion of a sphere of influence and the power gained from this expansion.

I'm from a forces family so I have a clear view of both civilian and forces life. I must admit, I think many war machines look incredible. There aren't many things which can rival the crafted beauty of the Blackbird SR71, for instance. That aside though, the only reason for these machines' existence is the increasingly efficient and inventive ways with which to kill each other. The term M.A.D. has never been more apt.

I see it like this. Some humans have a drive within them to acquire power. Most humans do not. I think this drive for power warps perception to a point where instead of someone asking 'what is best for the people?' They come to the conclusion that they know what is best for people whilst conveniently sidestepping consultation. As soon as this happens they alienate an entire segment of the population because there is no way everyone will agree with their hypothesis. As soon as this point is reached, it is time for that person to step down from their position of power. Because power corrupts, I don't feel any system which has a 'leader' can work effectively. It certainly will not stop war.

I'm a bit of a dreamer and I believe in an eventual Utopia. A sustainable utopia would have no leader. It would also have no fully functioning money system. Bartering, maybe, but stock markets would be a thing of the past. If you take away people's ability to hold power over someone else through the assumed acquisition of wealth then you see the end of megalomania. Wisdom and intellect would be the only viable currency left. I don't know how this utopia could be achieved but I do know we'd need an arbitrator. Someone who can stay fully neutral who we'd be able to count on to make final decisions or at least see both sides of an argument and help both sides decide based upon the volume of people who benefit after its implementation. I like the idea of figureheads who have no nationality. People who have no allegiance to anyone but the entire human race as a whole.

I have an idea who these figureheads could be but I'll keep that to myself for now. It is probably more relevant for another thread.
QuoteI find it mistifying that in this age of information, some people still deny the scientific history of our existence.

Zarathustra

Quote from: "Tanker"When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.
How so?
"Man does not draw his laws from nature, but impose them upon nature" - Kant
[size=85]English is not my native language, so please don't attack my grammar, attack my message instead[/size]

Kyuuketsuki

Quote from: "Zarathustra"
Quote from: "Tanker"When a government encourages and protects a radical element with know terrorist principles it becomes that government responsability when those same radicals attack a foriegn government.
How so?

I don't think it is inherently an unreasonable point of view after all isn't that the stance India is taking with Pakistan over the recent violence in Mumbai? One government mandate is to protect it's people form all enemies foreign or domestic but one assumes it also has some measure of responsibility for the actions of its own citizens if they are carrying out criminal acts in other countries especially if they are organised and acting from a base within the country in question.

Kyu
James C. Rocks: UK Tech Portal & Science, Just Science

[size=150]Not Long For This Forum [/size]

Zarathustra

Quote from: "karadan"I'm from a forces family so I have a clear view of both civilian and forces life. I must admit, I think many war machines look incredible. There aren't many things which can rival the crafted beauty of the Blackbird SR71, for instance. That aside though, the only reason for these machines' existence is the increasingly efficient and inventive ways with which to kill each other. The term M.A.D. has never been more apt....I wasn't going to post in this thread because I don't like the title. I can see no ethics with warfare whatsoever. War is not ethical.
I think you have some great points karadan.  :lol:


QuoteI have an idea who these figureheads could be but I'll keep that to myself for now. It is probably more relevant for another thread.
Please do. That sounds very interesting.
"Man does not draw his laws from nature, but impose them upon nature" - Kant
[size=85]English is not my native language, so please don't attack my grammar, attack my message instead[/size]