<Obviously, you're not a pacifist...>
Correct. I am not a pure pacifist. Close, but not completely.
I'll condone (yes, even cheer on) violence, in a few strictly limited situations. Such as when a small defenseless nation is the target of a war of aggression, when they have been overrun and occupied. This, to me, is like when a woman has been stalked and cornered by a rapist, and she uses violence to defend herself. In this situation, when she can't flee, I will condone anything she chooses to do, to protect herself. Violence in self-defense, as a last resort.
A pure pacifist would say that non-violent resistance will work, in all situations. And maybe they are right. Maybe the Iraqi people could secede from the American Empire, the way India seceded from the British Empire. But I won't blame the victim, by criticizing their methods of self-defense.
And there is nothing theoretical about the future wars that would have happened, if the NeoCon plan for Iraq had gone as planned. They laid it out in detail, in public. If Iraq had meekly submitted to our aggression, we'd now be getting ready for Regime Change in N. Korea or Syria or Iran. In the end, that would simply mean more dead young Americans sacrificed on the altar of the God of War. |
