No just wars?

[Jon Ford]

Mike-- I'm on your side, for once; I can't entirely grasp Roger's reasoning 
here.  There are some just wars, but I think we would agree that they are 
few and far between, and that even the "just causes" we fight for usually 
generate numerous unanticipated negative side-effects--and very few 
"positive" side-effects other than certain scientific inventions that get 
pushed through (although the invention of nuclear weapons, which came out of 
"just  war" World II doesn't seem all that desirable to me).  It is also 
helpful to know exactly who the enemy is--at least we knew it was the 
fascists in WWII, and we knew where most of them lived. "Terrorism" is a bit 
more amorphous!

Jon



>From: Michael Eisenstadt <michaele@ando.pair.com>
>To: austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net
>Subject: Re: No just wars?
>Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 09:22:44 -0600
>
>Roger Baker wrote:
>
> > Hey! I'm good for another couple of rounds if you change your mind.
>
>not until we agree on just wars. that is a concept which more than
>a few actual wars in history are BY AND LARGE considered to have
>been examples of. IE despite the innocent dead winning the war was
>a GREATER GOOD. some examples are WW II and the recent Kosovo
>intervention. the latter was done with surgical exactness with the
>numbers of innocent dead vanishingly small both in Kosovo and in
>Serbia and was a VERY just war.
>
>building the Brooklyn Bridge cost the lives of dozens of workers not to
>mention those of the designer and his son. but one would have to be
>quite
>the purist to therefore reject the project.
>
>if you reject the very possiblity of just wars what would be the point
>of arguing with you?
>


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