Actually, fighting the Nazis was not common sense. All manner of alternatives could have been formulated, for example, a policy of containment; a policy of co- hegemony; we could have counted on them exhausting themselves on the Eastern front, along with Stalin, and then come along, with a minimum of force, to pick up the pieces; we could have waited until they were complacent and then aided insurgents within the conquered nations, rather than directly confronting them. I am sure I could come up with more. We fought the Nazis because it was too awful, and too dangerous, to let them win, but we were not forced to the wall. With both Germany and Japan, we had violated strict neutrality any number of times, and therefore practically provoked attack from Japan, and Germany's declaration of war.
But the larger truth, which you fail to grasp, is that Hitler should have been stopped long before it seemed urgent to fight him. He remilitarized the Rhineland in 1935, in contravention of the Versailles treaty, for example, and yet the French did not challenge him. William Schirer was in Berlin at the time, and knew from contacts in the government that Hitler was prepared to withdraw if the French had not wussed out. Similarly, the Germans should not have been allowed to annex Danzig, or to annex Czechoslovakia. In other words, we should have dealt with Hitler while he was not so strong, rather thah allow him to increase in strength and become emboldened in adventurism, in order to save millions of lives in the long run. The problem is that people like you were always there to argue that there were alternatives, and that war was not the answer, thus practically dooming us to a major conflict.
I did not say "there will always be evil in the world". I said "there IS always evil in the world." For as long as we have historical knowledge, and for the foreseeable future, that is true.
The point of my locution about the lesser evil is not to subsume all instances of the lesser evil, but to emphasize the one under discussion, and its character as a choice. According to my premise, all that is necessary is a state willing to use military intimidation to get its way. It is the decision of those states that are subject to extortion or occupation to go to war or not, and, even if there is a war, it is the choice of states on the sidelines to enter in, so your point is silly.
As a matter of fact, there has always been criminality and rogue states, and we so far do not have an end in sight.
I fail to see why you make much out of emphasizing the utility of warfare for resolving conflict. On only goes to war if one finds the alternative unacceptable, and therefore, it falls within the idea of lesser evilism, even if you do not consider the regime per se evil.
It is not at all a question of fighting every evil person out there, it is a question of fighting when the alternative is likely to be unacceptable. Of course there are limits to force. One must weigh, for example, the likelhood of success before deciding that war is preferable.
There is plenty of evil in the world without war, for example, state oppression, famine, fathers who abandon their children, embezzlers, and slanderers. Nor does most of it entail the option of waging war, much less the necessity. Besides, as I noted concerning the Nazis, people had plenty of choice, and, for a long time, made the wrong choice by not stopping Hitler early, and could have rationalized avoiding ccnfrontation for at least an indefinite period. There is usually a choice, and it is not always clear.
I have never cared much about the question of stockpiles. I am interested in the ability of the regime to have given weaponized material to terrorists, which Kaye stated was a clear danger. Since there is no doubt that Saddam is hostile to us, as we were to him, it was not prudent to wait until he sponsored such an incident. Additionally, he was in fact in violation of UN mandates, and, finally, was a brutal dictator with genocidal tendencies. All of that makes it reasonable enough, if not mandatory, to have overthrown him.
By the way, my general observation about evil had to do with the use of force, as I should have made clear. The step after that was the resort to war. The way it bears is this: I finally reached a point where it began to appear to me that my pacifism was merely a way of trying to preserve personal purity, allowing evil to flourish unopposed. This is not a new thought on the matter, but seeing clearly that far from reducing the net evil in the world, I would merely increase it, finally impressed itself upon me. Also, of course, not all wars are justified, for example, the German war against Poland. |
