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To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (9366)	7/23/2006 7:07:31 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14758

That may be your idea, but it's a very bizarre one- when you have a useless war that ends in nothing, or even worse, ends by making things worse for the US, that's useless, or worse than useless. Vietnam, for example- a useless war, in the opinion of many. It doesn't make a soldier performing his duty less than honorable, but it does make his life lost an extra sad loss to the republic- since it did not need to be lost. Some times leaders make mistakes and get us in to stupid pointless wars- lives lost in those stupid pointless wars are wasted- and it is important to say so as soon as possible to minimize the waste, if you care about minimizing wasted lives. That is the most important thing. It is, in fact, extra honorable, in a poignant sort of way, to see young men throw their lives away on the alter of their country in the service of the stupidity from above. Didn't you ever see Gallipoli?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (9366)	7/24/2006 2:11:09 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14758

Amen to your post. --------------------------- And I'll add a few words about the futility of "wasted lives" in "unnecessary wars" arguments. People who opposed a particular war are quick to make a judgment which supports their opinion. It's the "see, I told you so" or "I knew it all along" idea. But in the light of history it is harder to make such judgments. The US war with Mexico was unpopular with many Americans at the time. It may have been unnecessary. Were the lives lost "wasted"? The war made what is now NM, AZ, CA, CO, UT, and NV US territory. Would we be better off without those territories? Can we really even imagine a US without those territories? The Civil War was certainly unnecessary - we could have let the South secede and that war cost more lives than all the other wars in American history combined. Would the nation be better off? I don't think so and the generation which fought the war didn't either. Moving forward in time - was Korea a necessary war? Maybe not. Though South Korea is a prosperous ally now instead a country in which millions starve. The unnecessary war certainly made a difference to tens of millions of people there. Furthermore, Korea and Vietnam were small wars in a larger "cold" war with Communism. I certainly believe we are better off for being the side that won that larger war even though not every battle in that longer war was successful or necessary in retrospect. In Iraq and Afghanistan, we've overthrown brutal dictatorships and made possible the introduction or real democracy into the heart of the Moslem world. That is certainly a noble and moral cause. But there is no guarantee that democracy will "take" and will lead to the long-term transformation of a backward and unstable part of the world although a similar policy worked in Europe and eastern Asia over a period of half a century. It's way too soon to make historical judgments about conflicts now still ongoing.