....since when is slavery abolished? At this moment in time there are over 27 million people on this great planet of ours that are tied into the binds of slavery...a new high for a new millenium. Don't believe that? Go ask one of the 12 year olds in Brazil that are cutting down your precious rain forests to make your charcoal briquettes for your summer barbeques. Or how about the Laotians making your silk ties? Oh wait, we forgot about the Pakistani kids making your rugs. The list goes on.....we could literally start bombing about 32 different countries right now, and then we'd really be some heros! Political pressure is not needed, only bombs and dead military folks.
WWI was fought in the 20th C and quite a few historians (and other people) think that that war, plus the treaties (if that's the right term) that ended it, were a major factor in creating the conditions that led to WWII. I don't see that as a positive accomplishment, do you?
I agree wars may accomplish "something"--for instance medicine often takes a huge leap forward--new surgeries are tried out (the troops aren't in a position to complain or sue) because all those new weapons that get tried out and created do all sorts of interestingly horrible things to human bodies. I've seen this up close and personal. New procedures are developed to try to cope with the huge number of complex injuries. Had the Vietnam War not happened, who who knows how long it might've taken the APA to get around to accepting the existence of what's now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And just think of the opportunities created by Bush's pre-emptive invasion for the prosthetics industry! And neurologists and other MDs may learn alot from working with the huge number of US amputees produced. Assuming the Bushies aren't successful in cutting funding for medical care for vets and the active military.
But perhaps you should talk to the amputees, the families of the dead and wounded in the US, UK, Australia, Iraq, et al, to find out if they think ego gratification for Bush and the neocons was sufficient cause to lose those lives, those previously whole bodies. Ask all the adults and children in this country (and others) who will not have food, decent infrastructure, cleanish air and water, trees, etc., because Bush and Congress seem to have decided it's more important to invade and occupy Iraq and give taxcuts to the wealthy then use taxdollars to renew the infrastructure of this nation and help younger generations learn, etc. I guess you could argue that Bush's invasion "accomplished" the removal of Hussein from Iraq. Was that the only way to do so? 122 billion tax dollars and counting would've bought the time and effort of a lot of assassins who probably could've "accomplished that goal" without the loss of life, limb loss, destruction of infrastructure, trauma, subsidization of large corporations via US taxdollars, more incidents of graft and corruption that Bush's "war" has "accomplished." And then, the Bushies claimed we were going to "accomplish" several other goals that have since been shown to never have existed to accomplish. Notably, Bush's pre-emptive invasion has not "made us (the US, the world) safer" as Bush, et al, claimed it would. It did, however, pull much needed skills and resources away from Aghanistan and contribute to the growing of one of the largest crops of opium poppies ever in Afghanistan (that's where I come into the picture by the way).
A more useful question to ask is: does war accomplish anything useful/productive that could not be accomplished by other, less violent, less destructive means? Even if it took longer?
To come up with answers to that question, you do have to define what you consider to be productive and useful. For example, if you are an arms dealer, then there aren't many "productive and useful" replacements for war (unless you include the Cold War in your definition of war). If you are an important drug dealer, you might think that Afghanistan's huge opium crop is a great thing (although it might lead to a drop in price, not good, I guess). I guess you'd also have to define 'war.'
In regards to communism, who really cares if it is abolished? Oh, that's right, we do, the Americans that believe that the only right way is the American way (that's because "we're number one!," right?). Who says so?
By the way, I voted for Bush......so don't think I'm just bashing the poor fool. I'll bash whoever I please when they start stepping on their peepee enough.
Next time while sitting in a bar or restaurant, and the guy next to you accidently bumps your arm, start yelling at him, and threatening to "kick his a*s!" I bet nine of of ten times, he tries to calm you down, convince you he doesn't want to fight you, and even offers you a drink. Isn't that cool.....peace is instinctively built into our thought processes. We try to calm the hostile ones through peace. Kind of nifty......Peace and politics, discussion and understanding. Those have solved more problems in the world than bullets and bombs, fists and knives, and other weapons ever have or will. If all fails, then I suppose there is a time to initiate offensive maneuvers against a known threat. I just hope that all else has failed before we start killing people.
By the way, more young men and women have been killed on US soil due to "gang warfare" this year than military young men and women overseas. Now there's a threat, I say we launch an offensive, and start cutting young gangsters in half with SOF helicopter mounted miniguns. No need to find out what the socio-economic causes are that are destroying our country, just start whacking anybody that doesn't "look" right. Oh wait, we couldn't do that on American soil. We can only get away with that on foreign soil. What was I thinking?
