The greatest crimes are not performed by petty criminals, thieves or even killers. We need not worry about the people whom everyone knows to be bad. We don’t need to fear them at all. Society is perfectly capable of dealing with such exceptions.
What we do need to fear is the moral concepts in people’s minds that make them not only justify but even cheer on and encourage invading other people’s regions to perform mass murder, if only it is performed by laughing and mindless killers in green costumes, from a safe distance, and against men and children who have done them no harm.
The civilian death toll in Iraq is estimated to be around 1 million. That is about 200,000 times the number of civilian people murdered in the clip above. Imagine witnessing more incidents such as the one in the video. Imagine watching about 60 per day, every single day, 8 years straight, and you would still not have seen all of the cruelties perpetrated in this mindless and cruel invasion perpetrated by the US government.
War is a racket that will continue for as long as people cling on to the mad fantasy that is the government.
Unfortunately, when it comes to war, once an enemy has made known their intentions to violate your natural right to self-government through murder and mayhem, you have one of two possible responses:
(1) Violently reply “return to sender”. Make sure the mailmen are wearing green and have plenty of ammo and support.
(2) Beg for mercy.
The war in Iraq has been explained numerous times. We were responded to a building threat, to a regime that not only doesn’t respect international borders but the rights of the individual. That same regime was funding terrorism in foreign countries, and could very well support terrorists acts of war against our own country. That same regime not only was developing weapons of mass destruction, but was known for using such weapons against their own people.
We could have taken the road we took before World War II—wait and see. We could have waited until the Iraqi armies had rolled halfway across the world before replying “return to sender”. Or we could have acted proactively.
The civilian casualty count is nothing to be proud about—except when you consider collateral damage from other wars in recent history and realize how many more civilians are alive today in Iraq thanks to our new technology and restraint.
Yes, it is terrible that an innocent child may die as we rush to inform the Iraqi regime, “No thanks!” with our guns and bullets and bombs. But what is the alternative? Shall we wait until they arrive in Mexico and Canada before we take the threat seriously? Or shall we hold back until they are on our front porch? That one child’s death is justified because of the number of lives, particularly our own, that are saved. The blame for that child’s death lies not with the nation who goes to war to eliminate a belligerent enemy, it lies with the enemy who initiated the belligerence.
Jonathan, thanks for your comment.
I appreciate your input and I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I am really trying to understand where you are coming from:
What was your childhood like? What were your parents like? How did they treat you? How much of it can you remember? Is there anything unusual that you would like to share with us or me regarding this, be it publicly or privately?
Thanks in advance,
Nima
@Nima
I’m curious why you’re avoiding the argument by attacking me rather than my argument. Do you see the weakness in your position but are afraid to admit it?
Here’s the core substance. I’ll state it plainly without any flourishes so you can show me where I’m wrong.
If someone is coming to kill you, and you refuse to submit to their conditions and they refuse to back down, then what are your options? Ultimately, you must either use physical force to restrain or kill your enemy, or you must submit or be killed. There’s really no other way.
If you choose to submit or die, then I understand that, as long as you’ve made your own choice. Personally, I will see it as a great injustice in the world and use whatever power I have to make sure your murder or enslavement is paid for. That’s because I respect my own life but the lives and freedoms of the people around me.
If you choose to fight, and you end up killing or imprisoning the enemy and depriving him of his God-given natural rights, then there are some moral quandaries that need answering.
In the vacuum, your action—either killing or depriving the enemy of his rights—appear evil. We simply don’t tolerate people that go around killing people or locking them up.
However, in context, it makes a whole lot of sense. See, you didn’t create the situation where you had to choose between life and freedom, or death and slavery. The enemy did. Everything you or others do in that scenario to preserve your life and freedom after he made the decision to deprive you of the same is laid on his head. He made the choice, he bears the consequences. If he had chosen differently, the situation wouldn’t exist and no one would be killing anyone else. This is exactly in line with keeping what you create, sowing what you reap, etc, and etc. except applied to moral decisions beyond simple economics.
If America decided, out of the blue, to attack and destroy a country which had not a violent or antagonistic bone in its political body, that would be wrong and we should suffer every indignity that we have brought up Saddam Hussein and his regime. I would be one of the most vocal critics, the same way I criticize abortion because it is lawful murder of innocents who have every right to life and have never chosen to be in the situation they are in.
This was clearly not the case. Iraq was antagonistic. Iraq was threatening. Iraq refused to negotiate or adhere to the terms we had negotiated with them. The blame for all of the civilian deaths, if indeed we killed them in an effort to end the war and disarm or kill our enemies, lie with our enemies, not us. That body count is answered, morally, economically, logically, on their heads of our enemies, not ours. They, the enemies within Iraq who are trying to kill us and others, reap the price of those murdered innocents.
@Jonathan Gardner
You are avoiding my question which I asked out of genuine curiosity. On top of that, you are viewing that question as an attack.
Could you help me understand why that is?
If you think about it, the one who is trying to get to the bottom of things is not you, it is me. You are in your comment above not talking about Iraq, you are not talking about war, you are in no way attempting to reason through the topic.
It rather seems to me that in your subconscious you are attempting to justify some sort of injustice that has been done to you.
Until that is dealt with, there is no point in arguing over Iraq, war, and politics. It would be a completely futile effort on both your and my part.
I am not here to attack you, I am here to help you and me understand what your subconscious is trying to tell us.