“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”

And in my opinion only, with no one else having to agree, a significant part of the brutality, futility and stupidity is what it does to the folks forced, encouraged, enabled, rewarded for being brutal. Kids placed in a fight or die situation by politicians fight and die, naturally. And when they have to be brutal and cruel in pursuit of no worthy goal, a large part of their soul corrodes. No one personally involved comes out unharmed. The torturer cannot act without damaging themselve, too.

The goal has to be worthy and other options exhausted, or war is inexcuseable.

Really, only people who regard other people as objects, who think they are "getting" someone by slaughtering innocents as if they were chess pieces, can approve of war except as a very, very last resort. I think one has to regard others as different, animals, rocks, or something to justify war. And other people are, bigawd, people.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to call the occupation of a country the size of California with an economy damned near the size of Delawares, with no air force, with no defences, a country which could not refuse the diplomatic pressures, a country which did not use chemical/biological weapons in 1990, by the military of the US a "war". Naked, illegal aggression, yes, shooting and killing, yes, but not really a "war".

Arf