War and Peace

[bluecherry]

War, Peace, and the relation between the two.
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war [wawr]
n (plural wars)
1. armed fighting between groups: a period of hostile relations between countries, states, or factions that leads to fighting between armed forces, especially in land, air, or sea battles
The two countries are at war.

2. period of armed fighting: a period of armed conflict between countries or groups
during the Vietnam War

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
peace [peess]
n
1. freedom from war: freedom from war, or the time when a war or conflict ends
the signing of the peace agreement

Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
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In this case, we shall speak of course of peace between or within nations as it is nations that undergo the real armed combat style war I shall refer to in this topic. Although peace is the normal default state of any relation, as the lack of conflict, it has preconditions to it's ability to remain the state of relations. Peace is only proper so long as war is not deserved. War is an extreme tool of enforcing justice. At any point where a nation or nations' government(s) commits or can be seen to be threaten to commit strong enough injustices against another nation or nation OR when a nation's government commits or can be seen to be threatening to commit strong injustices against it's own people waging war against the offender is a proper course of action. Injustices strong enough would include the violation/threat of violation of basic rights without first having committed any wrongs to merit the violaton, such as one nation threatening the very existence of another without it having done anything to the nation to deserve such first (such as how Germany was overrunning it's neighboring countries in WWII.) In these cases it is a form of self-defense, war.

Since war was waged as justice and self defense in opposition to the violation of rights , you need to be sure that each war fought the enemy is completely defeated to the best of your ability to do so in order to maintain peace. If you leave the enemy less then devastated, truly in awe of the power of the people it wronged, and go easier on your enemy then you could, they will gain neither a respect for you nor a fear of you and will have a quicker ability to be able to recover their military power then they should have and so now will just be angry(er) with you now and seek to come back and violate your rights all over again, and probably worse then before. They won't have learned their lesson or any respect and it will be you paying the price, having more injustices done to you and having to go back and fight the same people all over again.

So, preconditions of peace: respect for the rights of nations and individuals -- when this respect is not given, it's got to be forced through a war done to the best of your ability until it IS freely given and will no longer be sought to be denied. Only at this stage can peace be maintained.

 

[Sephiroth-zen]

When is war "just"?  

[bluecherry]

War is justified whenever those who are meant to be enforcing justice instead become the ones enforcing injustices, instead of protecting rights are now violating them, and a complete resolution of the injustices can not and will not be come to through peaceful procedures. War is always justified when it is self defense -- force is being exerted against Party A by Party B while party A has not violated any rights, they have the right to exert force back as self defense. (Know though that I'm talking about war as something involving governments. You don't just have wars between factions in a country because if any rights are violated/threatened to be violated so long as a government is acting properly, the governments is to take care of righting those wrongs and if no rights are violated/threatened to be violated, they don't have the right to initiate the force involved in a war and in doing so violate rights. It's when the actual governments as the ones normally allowed the right to use force, as I said, are involved as being really badly flawed/corrupt/dysfunctional it can legitimately be a war.)

 

[[ Mod ] James]

I agree with Sephiroth_Zen, when is war just? never, thats when. Even I, someone who is opposed to humans as singles and whole still cant justify the taking of lives through the taking of more lives, it just doesn't make sense.  

[bluecherry]

Due to your position on humans, this may be pointless to ask, but isn't self-defense a worthy cause? If one individual is trying to violate the rights of another individual who hasn't done something wrong first then doesn't the person have the right to use force if necessary to protect themselves? War is the same idea extended to a larger scale.

 

[Accalia-Squirrel]

Once again, other people already said it better than me.

(Me: Peace is when you don't make war with your self or others. That's what peace is. To make war to get peace seems a little like an oxymoron now, doesn't it?)

One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
Agatha Christie (1890 - 1976)

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)


You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
Jeannette Rankin (1880 - 1973)

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.
Mao Tse-Tung (1893 - 1976)


Either war is obsolete or men are.
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983),

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
Thomas Mann (1875 - 1955)


You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
Will Rogers (1879 - 1935),


Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967),


I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969)


If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known.
George C. Marshall (1880 - 1959)

(Me: lol, from world war to world peace, get it?)

(lol, whirled peas.)  

[bluecherry]

Oh trust me, you can avoid war indefinitely. It means giving up and giving in before you even try to defend yourself is all. It would be almost a perfect world where war neither exists nor is DESERVED though. Before this point a world without war is just as much, probably MORE, of a wretched mess then it is now WITH war.

 

[paine44]

Without war there would be no peace it's just like ying & yang it has to level out. Oh and there is no such thing as perfect everybody in the world would have to agree on everything, in order for them to agree on what can be considered perfect. Plus it's human nature to like violence I mean even I like to watch fights and scary movies where people get killed. Think of a world without bad things like war it would through everything off balance and be horrible.  

[bluecherry]

I wouldn't quite say war is necessary to continue to make it possible for peace to continue. The concept existing helps in giving peace a definition, but if there was really a good enough condition reached that no war was required anywhere, you would not then cease to have peace due to the lack of war. You only cease to have peace when you DO have war. Also, I think this may be a semantics disagreement here I have with you on the term "perfect", I would say what you are thinking of is more suited to being called "flawless" and that meaning people could disagree on what is and is not a flaw and thus you couldn't get a agreement on what's flawless without having everybody agree on what's a flaw. The last I would call some combination of morbid curiosity and a violent sense of humor people often have, but in any case any mentally stable person who is not under threat and does not have some judgment impairment on them like a mental disorder or drugs or something can quite effectively resist any urge to act upon violent impulses. Oh, and how does that make sense though? If it's "horrible", doesn't that mean the world is plenty bad at that time? wink

 

[Baulder]

War isn't a bad thing. In fact, it can be explained a fairely simple anology.

Think of a war between nations like a fight between teenagers.

If the two nations do not go to war, then they will be like two fueding little girls. They will vent their rage for each for years and years, occasionally striking at each other with small things. Pranks, stealing each other's things, backstabbing. Until eventually things get out of hand several years later, and they resolve it.

But if the nations go to war, then they will be like two boys. Instead of venting it in, they will fight each other, and vent out all of their rage all at once, solving the problem in mere seconds.  

[Baulder]

So basically, War is jsut a faster way of resolving things.
And you might argue that it costs more lives. But if you don't turn to war, then you will slowly lose lives, little by little over the years. Once again, war merely speeds up this process.
One question solves all this though. To Save life, or to Prolong Death? Which is your goal?  

[bluecherry]

I think your essential point is pretty accurate even if it does have to bring in stereotypes to get the point across. You can get a fight done out in the open, each side doing their worst, and get it all done with and a clear decision of who won usually, a real war, or else there's just so much sneaking around and back stabbing over a long period of time and it will just fester and get worse and worse. And if the initial offended party tries to not fight back in some manner, it's them that loses the worst when you have to drag things out. The "guilty party" is the initial offender, even if not by force like blowing something up per se, and can only gain. The longer the innocent ones try to refrain from fighting back against the "guilty" party the more they'll keep getting hurt, if not just outright taken over or destroyed. The guilty party can loose things when they're fought back against in attempts at retibution by those they wronged, but if the people they wronged don't fight back, they just keep gaining things for doing things they don't have the right to do in the first place.

 

[Baulder]

Well.... yeah.  

[Wertish]

Blue, what you said made sense, well to me atleast for fanatics. What about the people who see no resultion in even fighting bacl? What happens to the people who do thing but fight back? I believe that there is, as in nigh all cases just a shadowed grey line for which right/wrong war/peace exsist together, but apart, but still defining themselves through each other.....


I dunno if that makes sense.....very long day at work......  

[bluecherry]

Before I respond I think some of your wording got muddled. Could you re-read that and tell me if it's all correct, there's no typos or anything that could have changed the meaning? One word I know is misspelled, but I can tell what it's supposed to be, but another I'm not sure if it's supposed to be that word or a different one.