Exploration: The Ethics of War

I have always been interested in war. The Courage, Honor, and Valiantry of soldiers. The Idea of Good fighting Evil. The strong protecting the weak, or the weak defeating the strong. I have a father in the Air Guard, who before that was in the Army Guard and in the Active Army. He always was a positive role model for the armed service. He would come home from drill and play G.I.JOE's with me. Telling my all about the vehicles and weapons. It seemed kinda boring to me I'm sure but now it is one of my coolest memories.

My Grandfather was in WWII. He was an Artillery spotter. He served in Europe and said he climbed the Eiffel tower after Paris was liberated. He was always talking about milkitary or conservativism it seems. I was young when I visisted him. Anyway, I always played guns, and war as a kid. I watched war movies or action movies and enjoyed them alot.

I really wanted to be in the service but I also didn't want to be given orders to do something that I thought was immoral. An example I used when discussing this comes to mind: During the peace keeping mission in the former Yugoslavia a building was hit by American Bombers, Inside where three chinese reporters. I thought to myself, were those men killed on purpose because they had something that the US didn't want released? I don't know of course, it was actually a weird thing for me to think back then. Although there was no evidence that the reporters were killed by the bombs on purpose I thought that I could never be involved with a mission that would kill men that new something that would make our country look bad. Of course maybe they were spies or mercenaries or who knows. I can't make assumptions about the situation because they are not the truth.

Interestingly though until recently, as in just over a month I have decided that I am opposed to The War in Iraq. To anybody who knows me well enough this is probably a shock. I guess that I argued myself out of agreeing with the whole thing. Other wars too for that matter.

I am trying out a theory, or better yet since I make no Foreign Policy I am thinking about a theory. I wonder if each country shold be treated like a household. These households have leaders of there own, customs and cultures of there own, rules or laws that the inhabitants follow. Those living inside the households are the family or families. Those families have parents and children. Sometimes there are guests living with these families. If you use your imagination alittle bit you can see where I am going without two more paragraphs of explination. Each of these households live in a neighborhood that is the planet earth. We have to treat our neighbors kindly, don't we.

I am getting into a rambling role here! Trying to boil it down I must say that we have to treat countries the same way we treat people in our everyday lives. If a person hit you, what would you do? Your first instinct could be to return fire. If we attack another country they are obviously going to fight back. If some country attacked us wouldn't we fight back?

Well, hummph...

1) The Iraqis had a Dictator that we didn't like.
2) The Iraqi Dictator supported Hezbollah and Hamas.
3) The Iraqi Dictator hated the US.
4) The Iraqi Dictator broke international rules.
5) We didn't trust that the Iraqi Dictator didn't have WMD's.
6) We suspected that the Iraqi Dictator supported Al Qa'eda.
7) The Dictator was a Dictator, therefore no democracy.

If there is anything else I am leaving out that are major points for This war please tell me.

1) There is Anti-Bush Sentiment World wide, we could infer that some world leaders hate Bush.
2) We have supported the Contras in there terrorist attacks against the Sandanistas in Panama.
3) George Bush hates Saddam Hussien.
4) The war in Iraq is against international rules.
5) We have WMD's.
6) Many suspect we support alot of stuff we shouldn't.
7) We don't elect or president directly in this country.

I don't know. I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. I love this country. I have faith in this country. We just think that because we are Americans that we make the world go round or something. Who are we to be police. Who are we to go it almost alone (nearly) and change a countries culture. We have to do this because Iraq is a threat? Every country in the world is no threatened by us. We have to do this for democracy? Why start this fight in Iraq and why stop there? How much do we really care about Iraqi's freedom? How much do we care about countries who are threats?

As Americans we set inside America. We see things as Americans see things, not like Iraqis, Syrians or the French. If another Superpower existed. Say Russia. Would we support there efforts to make Iraq a communist nation, or a democracy, or anything? No, NO NO NO NO...

We are living in an Empire and we don't see it cause we get all the Oil.