War: Is it worth it?

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

There's actually a fairly large subsection of historians (I'm one of them) who feel that there was actually no world war I and II, just one longer war that had a negotiated and then violated ceasefire. There were no new "causes" for the second world war because the war never actually ended.

To the OP, conflict is inevitable as long as humans have needs and wants, and a desire to fulfill them. I don't believe that -war- is strictly necessary, but since it has long been such an easy method for the elect to get what they want (since face it, presidents and generals don't go into trenches) that there hasn't been nearly as dedicated a committment to diplomacy and peaceful resolution.

One time, I was in my AP NSL class and this was what happened last year: Many people were answering this one question that read: What position do you think is the most important position that the president has? Almost everyone stated commander in chief, but I later brought up the point that if a president can actually be a good chief negotiator, he doesn't even need to be a good commander in chief (though it's always good just in case) making the chief negotiator position more important.

As far as war goes, I don't like wars that go nowhere or just further seperate the world. I support anything that unifies the world to becoming one peaceful nation without these small nations and divisions. However, I'm not saying that the world should be like super Nazi Germany or something, but a giant, united nation with peace for everyone. Whether peace or war can accomplish this I don't know, but I would hope that it could somehow peacefully happen even though I seriously doubt it.

[purebloodtexan]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

Cultural isolation (although not whole) might be the only way to keep the most peace throughout the world.

If I'm not mistaken, one reason for the skirmishes in Iraq (I've been trying to avoid using the term "war" for what's going on over there) is us trying to encourage democracy on the Islamic peoples and bring the Sunnis and Shia together. This clearly isn't working, and Iraq was probably more stable and friendly when Saddam was in power due to the fact that he kept the two Muslim factions away from each other.

[devonin]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

And once again, the poor Kurds just get completely ignored. The largest ethnic group on EARTH that doesn't have its own country, and nobody even seems to notice they exist.

[purebloodtexan]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

I haven't heard much of the Kurdish people at all, as crazy as it seems. Could you give me a brief overview of their involvement in the conflicts in the Middle East?

[rzr]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

What about the Israel/Palestine conflict? Perfect example of war going nowhere.

[devonin]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

I haven't heard much of the Kurdish people at all, as crazy as it seems. Could you give me a brief overview of their involvement in the conflicts in the Middle East?

The Kurds are the other main ethnic group in the middle east after Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. They're found primarily in the area you'd get drawing a circle around the overlap of the borders of large parts of eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northwestern Iran and smaller parts of northern Syria and Armenia.

They represent as much as 20% of the population of some of these countries, but are incredibly underrepresented in any kind of political control or positions of authority. In places like Turkey, speaking Kurdish was actually illegal for a lot of years, and pretty much all the middle eastern governments are very repressive of their kurdish populations, because it is widely feared that all of these people (somewhere around 30 MILLION of them) might one day get it in their heads to band together and declare themselves an independant state. That's mostly troubling because Kurds religiously are a lot more tolerant than most branches of Islam. They have less harsh strictures for women etc.

Chances are very good that a large-scale internal civil war in Iraq would basically result in the creation of three seperate countries, a Sunni, a Shi'a and a Kurdish state. If that happened, it would be very likely that Turkish Kurds would start agitating to join the new country, and there would be some pretty far-reaching political consequences for the area.

What about the Israel/Palestine conflict? Perfect example of war going nowhere.

The Israel/Palestine conflict is also pretty unique in the annals of war, so I'm not sure it should be used as a case example of anything.

Israel and Palestine were created by writ by the UN after the second world war, and basically said "We're making a two-state system in this country, one state is jewish, and the other is muslim" Pretty much as soon as this went through, Israel declared its independance from Palestine, and the arab league declared war and attacked Israel.

Israel managed to get the US on board helping them out and they won that war, and then later invaded and annexed a bunch of land that was Palestine's.

The entire conflict at this point centres around for one, whether the UN actually had a mandate to just plop down national lines like that, and two, if they did, how to resolve their mutual claims to Jerusalem, and how to resolve the issue of the large number of palestinian refugees living in areas that Israel took over and are now expanding into.

The fact that if at any point the US withdrew their support from Israel, they would probably get flattened like a mack truck certainly doesn't help anything, though teh US has been supplying and training them for so long now that it would take a while for things to wind down.

It is a really dirty and ugly conflict because both of these people are fighting in what they consider to be defense of their homeland. It isn't something that could ever have been ended easily, because there's no possible win/win compromise in their minds.

[rzr]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

If this group of people is more tolerant than the others it seems to me that they should gain power. It would be less violent, in my opinion.

Also, thanks, devonin, for answering my question. I was slightly confused.

[devonin]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

Just because they are more in line in some of their attitudes with the west doesn't mean they ought to get power just because. And while I'm all for the creation of an independant Kurdistan, they are individually too small a percentage of the population in their home nations to ever win democratic elections.

[rzr]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

Why wouldn't it be a good idea to put a lenient Middle Eastern group in power? Even if their democracy dwindled the other countries would want to keep them in power because they would need to take advantage of the fact that they wouldn't have to put up with the other Middle Eastern countries, therefore the Western countries would support their democracy.

[Zythus]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

Western countries does not affiliate with whatever system the Middle Easterns have, I certainly doubt the Middle East would gain redemption due to their new and hopeful democracy from western nations, not to mention support it and also assuming it would even succeed.

"Get non violent people running the show! That way, we wouldn't need to worry about them anymore because they won't cause trouble anyways." is your opinion, I presume.

[rzr]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

Though I normally frown upon a one word answer in CT, all I have to say is "yes" because that is my opinion.

[devonin]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

But you're suggesting that what American should do is depose a government and replace it with a government of their own choosing, and then using American military power to keep that government in control of the state, solely because America has decided they like them more. What's more, you're putting a MINORITY in charge of the whole country? 17% of the population gets their regime put into power?

[rzr]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

Pretty much what I'm saying is if the need to actually avoid war is there, using pacifists/ignorant people to calm a country is better than using bombs. If we put lenient people in charge then that eliminates the aspect of war [, moderately]. However, putting a hostile group in charge almost directly advocates war.

My basic theory for the Middle East: force a democracy to remain in Iraq and influince the other Middle Eastern countries into a democratic union. Keep it forced for approximately 70 years. My point to that theory? Because the people that are in charge now have been used to a dictatorship their entire lives. Once their dead and the next generation is in power they'll keep ve democracy because they were used to the [forced] democracy their entire lives.

[jewpinthethird]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

My basic theory for the Middle East: force a democracy to remain in Iraq and influince the other Middle Eastern countries into a democratic union. Keep it forced for approximately 70 years. My point to that theory? Because the people that are in charge now have been used to a dictatorship their entire lives. Once their dead and the next generation is in power they'll keep ve democracy because they were used to the [forced] democracy their entire lives.

Yes. Brilliant. 70 year occupations! Forced Democracies! Belittling of the savage Arab, incapable of functioning on his own! Encourage ethnocentric beliefs! Yes! The perfect path to peace.

[purebloodtexan]

Re: War: Is it worth it?

I don't think that Rzr realizes that many jihadis are trained from the time that they can speak. One man passes his learning to his child, that child passes it onto his child, and it continues. Even if we force a democracy, there will still be fighting, possibly a never-ending struggle.