Appeasement 101

I entered a discussion with another poster on Freudian Slippers, and somehow the conversation turned to the use of force. This is what the poster, David (not to be confused with me) had to say:

I see I am outnumbered by the warmongers who think you can force freedom on a country through the judicious use of the lives of the American military as well as the lives of innocent civilians we accidentally kill while freeing them from despotic rule. And if you would state that fewer people have died at the hands of our military than would have died had Saddam still been in power, I will say that of all those who died at Saddam's hands, *none* of their blood would be on the hands of the US. Now we have the blood of thousands of innocents on our hands. If you say that innocent blood must be spilt in the pursuit of freedom, I question the freedom that you are pursuing.

Global capitalism would be the most wonderful thing in the world. It would increase the prosperity and freedom of all. Spreading it at the point of a gun poisons the well.
Loving freedom does not come part and parcel with the need to love the state and what it does.

This is an attitude that I encounter quite a lot. It is the attitude that the blood of not even one innocent person justifies anything, and it is quite an ideological attitude.

If everyone thought like David there would be no war, no suffering, etc. It is a noble thought indeed. David believes we are on a collision course with utopia, that humanity has evolved so much that why should we war? Why should we fight?

Well David, we are not on a collision course with utopia, human thought and understanding has evolved but human emotions have not. There is still anger, hate, greed, and corruption in the world and much of it in the Middle East.

Peace is not the rule, it is the exception to the rule. The peace David has enjoyed in his country he gained through force and it has been maintained through force. That is why even peaceful nations still maintain an army. Many innocent people died so David could be free to criticize his government, and David is exercising that freedom without a second thought.

You are not born with the right to be free, but everyone should be entitled to that right. If I was born into Iraq I would not have the same rights that David has. Those rights were taken away from Iraqis by force, and they can only be given back with force.
But no, from David's point of view, as long as millions of Iraqis are dying and someone else is killing them - that's fine.

This thinking stems from that fact that David probably believes that Saddam was not a threat to his country or himself. David also probably believed that Osama Bin Laden was not a threat 10 years ago, and David may never even have heard of him.
If Bill Clinton decided to invade Afghanistan to deal with Osama after the first WTC bombing, David would probably have been against that invasion - despite the fact that it may have prevented 9/11 and hence the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Am I advocating the killing of innocents? No. But innocent people do die either way. They die if you do nothing and they die if you do something.
Innocent people go to jail and some die, but should we do away with laws? Absolutely not - as long as they do more good than harm.
Is America doing more good than harm in Iraq? Absolutely.

However David is not wrong and neither am I. David's attitude is needed, it is needed to keep 'warmongers' like me in check. The difference is when David's attitude is needed.

People like David have had their time, their time was when the Berlin wall came crashing down. However when the Twin Towers came crashing down, it is now our time.