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Flame » in reply to Same Old Anti-war Rubbish

"War is the only answer to tyranny"
Mary Anne — (archived)

No.

War is one answer to tyranny, a violent answer.

Please look at the development of civil rights for blacks in this country. We fought a civil war founded basically upon this issue. Yet the black population were only technically freed by that carnage. For over 100 years, black citizens continued to live in subservient and terror-ridden conditions. The civic equality they sought and deserved was not achieved by the war that "liberated" them to sharecropping, Jim Crow and the Klan. It was done through a movement scrupulous in its non-violence. The work still isn't done. Peaceful change takes time. Wars of ideas are won by attrition. It's not for the impatient.

The differences between our civil rights conflict and the current conflict in Iraq are two: the people willing to sacrifice themselves were not shooting at the people they were fighting, and the people holding the power had, over years of public pressure in civic life, developed the capacity for shame.

Some may say that America's "peculiar institution" was not tyranny. I would disagree with that assertion from anyone.

One can't predicate a justification of the violence of war upon the fates of those that might have been killed without it. That's pure speculation, crystal ball stuff with a boost from statistics. It does nothing to bring back to life those who have actually died, or restore limbs to those who have actually been maimed. Speculation into the fictional land of what might have been does nothing to alleviate our responsibility for what we have actually done.

In war, one must remain focused on reality, even though reality is a horror. It's too grave an action to do otherwise.

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