The War Pragmatists

by kos
Tue Aug 23rd, 2005 at 12:48:34 PDT

I'm not anti-war. As I've said before, I'm a military hawk. I supported the Afghanistan War and I supported the Bosna and Kosovo interventions. I'm not one of these touchy-feely hippy types that thinks war is inherently bad. I laugh at people who think they can "visualize peace".

Unlike most people reading this, I grew up in a country at war. I've seen the effects first-hand. To me war isn't a video game or an abstract concept. It's real. Yet sometimes, many times, military force is a force for good. There are evil people in the world, doing evil things. And all the sanctions in the world, all the strongly worded denunciations, will never have the effect of a 1,000 pound bomb.

I oppose the Iraq War.

But I refuse to be labeled "anti-war". I'm not. I'm anti this war. Why? Because I'm a war pragmatist. I understand the costs of war, but I also understand the potential benefits.

And in a modern world, we need to be able to weigh the two when deciding whether it's worth engaging in combat.

I opposed Iraq because it forced the U.S. to take the eyes off the real threat -- the Al Qaida assholes that attacked the United States and many of our allies around the world. That was a rightous, honorable campaign. Yet we took the eyes off the ball to go after an impotent, contained, powerless regime that posed nary a threat to its neighbors, much less the U.S.

It's a war that never should've been fought, it's a war that's been negligently managed, and it's a war that we can't win. All the military might in the world can't convert fantastical wishful thinking into reality.

I oppose Iraq not because I'm anti-war. I'll have nothing to do with any of the anti-war rallies planned in the near term (and the crazy cast of characters that seek to inject their unrelated own pet causes into the proceedings).

I oppose the Iraq War because I'm a War Pragmatist.

*Thank you Kos for describing mine and many others on the left's beliefs on the Iraq war.
Lomstradamus