Letters to the Editor
bucky1
Published Letters: 1714
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Shooter has a point
[Read the article: The Republican Party is the party of Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... The flip side of forbidding pre-emptive war is that it becomes the Totalitarian Thug Protection Doctrine. If one measures the worth of an action by how many people die, the correct path is not so obvious...
I have heard that line of reasoning often from our Republican friends (and Democrats), and it sounds good, but there are a few weaknesses. Why do we think we are the ones to save the planet? Will we be happy if someday China rules the planet as we do? Will you like that?
Why does the USA sell arms to anyone with the cash to pay? Why let the CIA destabilise other counties? Why make so many threats as the VP did against Iran the other week? The USA spends at least a Trillion a year on the war budget. We have historically supported dictators around the globe.
Let me repeat; we have historically supported dictators around the world.
My boss (a lifelong liberal Jewish fellow who always votes Dem) asked the other day why the UN could do nothing about things like Darfur and other conflicts. I responded that the U.N. is not democratic --- there are 5 counties with permanent veto power over all action. I asked why was it not set up as a real democracy? He said; "there were a lot of countries in those days (the beginning of the UN) we could not trust to be on our side --- we needed a final say". That my friends is why we are perhaps the biggest danger; we are the ultimate control-freaks.
Shooter, the first act of a man in a deep hole should be to stop digging. Perhaps if we stop threatening people around the world almost every day, the world could reach stasis. The first casualty of war is truth; and the second is freedom.
Lastly, we can not remain free and prosperous unless at our very core we are a moral people. A moral people would not invade other countries as Germany did to Poland. (and yes, they claimed Poland was the threat)
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@ Shooter --- more on Darfur
[Read the article: The Republican Party is the party of Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese278.html
This old fellow spent 49 years as a journalist and op-ed writer. He has pissed off left-middle-and-right on countless occasions. I think that this one article is very helpful reading if you are concerned about the misery in Darfur.
... In the 1930s, a tougher breed of Americans didn't just demonstrate. They formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, went to Spain and fought in the Spanish Civil War. A famous movie star, Errol Flynn, risked his life and suffered wounds carrying money through enemy lines to the loyalist forces. Of course, Flynn was no sissy. Before becoming an actor, he was a deep-water sailor and smuggler and barroom brawler par excellence. He was real man, not an image of a man.
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The fighting in Darfur is not a conflict of good guy versus bad guy. It is bad guy versus bad guy. Both sides are armed. Both sides have committed atrocities. Both sides show as much sympathy and mercy for the other as a rattlesnake does for a mouse.
It is not a conflict of white versus black. Both sides are black. It is not a Muslim-versus-Christian conflict. Both sides are Muslim. It might have even started the way the old range wars started in Wyoming in the 19th century. One side is nomadic herdsmen; the other side is farmers. When farmers try to keep herds from grass and water, there is sure to be gunfire, whether in Sudan or in 19th-century Wyoming.
The conflict is, most of all, none of our business. It does not affect the United States one iota. If it goes on for 10 years, it will not affect the United States. If it is resolved tomorrow, it will not affect the United States. We have no strategic or national interests whatsoever in Sudan. If the people in Sudan wish to kill each other, that is their business, not ours.
Read the whole thing; it is not very long and he writes as if he was talking to you at the diner table --- plain and simple.
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@ondelette -- death by thug
[Read the article: The Republican Party is the party of Bush]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wikipedia lists estimates for WWII casualties at 60 million dead. The biggest "thug" on your list for casualties would be Mao, his toll is estimated by some at 41 million. Cambodia is about 2 million, and Stalin about 10 million. So even without adding in other wars, World War II tops the "thugs".
Yes, you can look at it as you did given the exact wording in his question. I think it is a more fair comparison to look at all dead due to thugs (democide) verses all dead due to war for the century.
Democide is estimated at 262,000,000 million souls. The war dead, bad as it is, does not compare.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democide
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/
http://www.answers.com/topic/democide