Je suis collateral damage

[Guest]

I'm saying that I sense a certain reluctance - not necessarily on this forum, but generally, in society - to face this responsibility. It is easy to condemn murder by religious fanatics. It is not so easy to admit some degree of culpability for collateral damage amongst Muslims. But without accepting such accountability, I foresee a whole future of blood feud, which is, of course, precisely the agenda of the terrorists.

 

Best wishes, 2RM.

 

I sense that the degree of culpability you are sensing is the refusal of the West to claim responsibility for collateral damage amongst the enemy that are specifically placed by the enemy in the path of war for the exact purpose of making the West feel culpable for them...

[MarginOfError]

There is a reason the USA has not positively won a war for five decades or more. We simply have not got the stomach to do it properly anymore.

 

You say that as if it's a bad thing.  I would argue that the development of our distaste for war is one of the most important and positive developments of our culture in the history of our species.  Let's hope we can hold on to and advance this development instead of regressing into the barbarism of earlier wars*.

 

 

* Not to say that our current wars aren't barbaric.  They are. But we're getting less so, and I'm glad.

[Guest]

You say that as if it's a bad thing.  I would argue that the development of our distaste for war is one of the most important and positive developments of our culture in the history of our species.  Let's hope we can hold on to and advance this development instead of regressing into the barbarism of earlier wars*.

 

 

* Not to say that our current wars aren't barbaric.  They are. But we're getting less so, and I'm glad.

 

And then the enemy blows up a building...  yep.  A lot of good a distaste for war brings us... 13 years of war is a lot more distasteful than 6...

Edited January 12, 2015 by anatess

[mdfxdb]

 

 

 

* Not to say that our current wars aren't barbaric.  They are. But we're getting less so, and I'm glad.

And this is why we lose.....

 

We should avoid war at all costs.  I think we try to do so.  But when we do engage in a war, we are not fighting to win.  Wars are won through death, and elimination of the enemy into unconditional surrender.  Anything less, and it turns into a mess.  

 

Yes, it is a bad thing when we do not achieve over all victory in a war in which we engage.  

Edited January 12, 2015 by mdfxdb