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[somefantastic10.livejournal.com]

Comments

[mmmmjournal.livejournal.com]

Forcing a better lifestyle upon a hopelessly oppressed and tortured people.

Excuse me if I don't see the problem with that.

[somefantastic10.livejournal.com]

"The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

-martin luther king, 1976

[mmmmjournal.livejournal.com]

The end justifies the means. The eventual improvement in the quality of life in the Middle East will make it all worthwhile.

And Dr. King wasn't alive in 1976.

[disturbed-kiwi.livejournal.com]

I can't believe you just said the ends justify the means.

The means is far more important than the ends. Evil people can have good effects, that doesn't mean I want the evil.

[fleaplus.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting philosophical difference. I'd also argue that the ends justify the means, so long as the, uh, integral of goodness over time between the present timepoint and the end timepoint is greater than the integral of badness over the same interval.

What one has to be careful about though is making sure that the means don't end up replacing the ends.

[wyzwun.livejournal.com]

I think he meant 1967. That's when that was said.

[mmmmjournal.livejournal.com]

I figured. Just checking.

[somefantastic10.livejournal.com]

it was a typo. it was 1967. i really wish livejournal would let you edit comments.

Its pretty easy to say the end justifies the means when you support the war, and yet, as far as i know, you aren't part of the "means" that is currently enlisted in the war, fighting. If you were enlisted in the military i'd find it a lot easier to swallow the concept of saying that 1420 dead americans, 20000 injured americans, and 17000 dead Iraqi civilians are part of the "means" towards this "righteous cause."


And speaking of which, don't you find it hypocritical of us as a nation that we have gotten ourselves into a war with a country that hadn't attacked us because we feel that we are the moral superiority? You seem to truly believe that we are fighting a moral, righteous cause, but do you realize that this idea of righteousness has been used by leaders to motivate countless countries over the years, including some (like the Nazis) that we wouldnt quite consider moral?

[mmmmjournal.livejournal.com]

Well, we finally found something to agree upon: LJ should let you edit comments.

I find it fascinating that the liberals are using numbers anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 to estimate the number of Iraqis killed. I'm not kidding... there are those of you who think 100,000 people have been killed in this conflict. I guess if it sounds bad, and it makes George W. Bush sound bad, somebody out there will be willing to buy it.

I don't need to be enlisted to know that what we're doing is right. And perhaps if you ever spoke to somebody who HAD been over there, you'd hear some of the GOOD news that the liberal media refuses to report. No, things haven't been going well over the last two months or so, but coalition forces continue to make progress and I have confidence in the upcoming elections.

There are going to be casualties in any conflict. It's true. It's unfortunate. It's something we all have to cope with. But, as callous as this will sound, it is better to lose only 1,000 of our men over there than to lose 100,000 over here. I have no doubt that if we hadn't started the pre-emptive war in Iraq, war would have eventually found us over here.

As far as our moral superiority, I'll refer you to my original comment on this topic:

Forcing a better lifestyle upon a hopelessly oppressed and tortured people? Seems to me like we DO have the high moral ground after all.

I've said my piece. I'm done for the day.

[somefantastic10.livejournal.com]

the range between 10,000 and 100,000 is because, frankly, its too difficult to estimate. 17000 is the official military estimate, but a few credible (and many questionable) websites have double or even quadruple that amount dead. Frankly the area is so remote its impossible to accurately guess the level of destruction to these impoverished, sometimes nomadic people. But i can garuntee that whatever the number is, the liberal press is definitely not talking about that side of the story.

and your original statement is very idealistic, and difficult to disagree with. But as the cartoon suggests, why are we doing this with TANKS? and whats with the fact that this war has been about WMDs, Saddam, and now democracy? i prefer to have a mission statement before we go to war. Maybe that's just me.

[jimb.livejournal.com]

Wow, you don't believe that Iraqis have been dying since Operation Just Because started and things "haven't been going well over the last two months or so" should really be "the last year or so."

And for the "it is better to lose only 1,000 of our men over there than to lose 100,000 over here," do you really think that Iraq was going to invade America? The idea that Saddam Hussein was going to personally fly over here and drop a nuc-u-lar bomb on us is quite retarded.

I can't wait until we invade China and free us a billion "oppressed and tortured people."

[wyzwun.livejournal.com]

China might be a bit large for an invasion. I suggest many high scale nuclear bombs. You don't have to hit them all, just close enough where the survivors eventually die of some disease or another.

[jimb.livejournal.com]

Or bird-flu times a billion.

[drivebyluna.livejournal.com]

The end never justifies the means.

[marisaurus.livejournal.com]

"The end justifies the means."

So therefore the Holocaust is justifiable and Hitler should be viewed as a savior for indirectly causing the existence of Israel?