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re: War is the only answer to tyranny
Tom Brosz — (archived)

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.

I've been sitting here listening to civilian casualty figures that are almost completely statistical constructs, yet I'm supposed to accept these numbers without a second thought.

By your standards, there is no way to prove that if civil rights legislation and other legal redressing had never been passed, that no more lynchings would ever have taken place, and no more blacks would have been forced to the back of a bus. After all, that would be sheer speculation based on past behavior, right?

For God's sake, use common sense. Saddam's regime had a proven, decades-long history of human misery, and assuming that this would have continued under his regime into the foreseeable future is completely reasonable.

There is more to this than the simple perception of casualty counts. World War II had an enormous civilian casualty count, a great deal of it the result of Allied attacks on Europe and Japan intended to defeat the Axis powers.

You could make a very good case that had the world simply sat back and allowed Hitler to absorb Europe, England, and eastern Asia, that the numerical death total would have probably been lower than what it actually was. Was that the main goal?

Damn few tyrannies have just folded up and peacefully gone away. The Soviet Union comes to mind--a bloody miracle in my opinion--and the jury still isn't quite out on that one IMO. Can you think of any others? I think slavery in America is a bit of a reach, especially if you write off the Civil War.

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