Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I would like to know what your opinion on war is.

Not a specific war, but war as a whole.

For my opinion, I'm firmly anti-war except for self-defence. I feel that war doesn't help any country winning or losing. It only creates suffering, death, and bitterness toward's those who fight in it.

While I know it is inevitible, I wish that it wasn't here in our world currently.

I might add more when the disscussion expands a bit. Untill then...

Discuss.

I agree with you in full. War should be only used in defending one's self.
Even if you are at war and fighting on another countries soil, in an offencive position, I have trouble deciding if even that is right or not.

Let me ask you something.... When you go to war, it is used in the Defensive postion before you Retaliate. Lets take a look at World War II, the Japaneese Attacked us. Being as the rules of war, when you go to war with your enemy, you go to war with your enemy's Allies. When we fought back against the Japaneese Zeke's Airplaines by using Anti-Aircraft Guns, that was in our Deffensive position. onece we declaired war, we struck back against them on a Different idland using the same thing they did to us. Now then, because Germany was the Japaneese's Ally, We went to war with them. Germany Didnt attack us first, we Attacked them with Bombings, and the Invasion of normandy, there were times when some Squads who were on the Rhine or else where in Eaurope, had to defend a position, but we, as a whole, were attacking Germany.

So in conclusion, You can take a Deffensive postion, but to get rid of your Enemy, you must Be On Offence At some point.

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But do you really have to completely annialate the enemy? You shouldn't utterly destroy them, but give them a good-enough bashing on your own soil that tells them not to come back.

listen, if someone attacks your Land, your only option is to strike back, or else they will keep coming back. Near Anihilation is what you aim for.

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Not always.
Lets say your village goes to another village and attacks them. You catch them by surprise and weaken their defences. The next day, you attack them again, but this time they're ready. You underestimate them, they catch you off guard, and serverely hurt your forces on their turf.
Now, with a chunk of your military gone, and that village waiting for you, do you attack again? It really depends, but in closing, doing a significant amount of damage in self defence will do good enough.
Even if you choose to invade again, be ready, and keep defending the homefront, and eventually, they will stop attacking.

Actually, right after that part where you suffer significant ammount of loss of troops, you fall back, and either the nexk day, or just an Hour after you guys arrive back in your village, they can counter strike and Kill all of your men.

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But what is the point? What is the foreign village gaining from that? Complete and total xenocide?

No it is Retaliating for the loss of their men when your village first attacked.

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Exactly. Do you have to get revenge? Its doing nothing. I believe that we can just stop it there, instead of throwing away more lives just for something as stupid as the fulfillment of revenge.

I've always had the same oppinion of war as Robert E. Lee.

"It is good that war should be so terrible, lest we grow to fond of it."

War is an inevitability in human society because violence is the only universal language. In a perfect world, we would be able to settle our differences with thoughtful and rational discussion and debate, but with an enemy that deliberately targets innocent civilians and decapitates hostages there can only be one course of action.

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While I am mostly anti-war, I think that there are reasons other than defense. I mean, if some country threatened to destroy a country, or threatened to kill thousands of people, then that is a good case to go to war. War doesn't solve anything, but sometimes it is the only option.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

I am mostly anti-war. However, as St. Augustin once put it, it is the sad duty of just men that they must sometimes fight wars for the sake of justice. Nations have a duty to defend and protect their citizens, their own borders, and their allies. In fact, failure to protect citizens, borders, and allies is a sin.

So how do you determine if a war is just? Philosophers and theologians (though not universally) tend to accept these criteria:

1. In response to an act of aggression. For example, if terrorists bomb the World Trade Center, then we are entirely justified in finding those responsible and neutralizing them. The act of aggression can be committed against the nation in question or against its allies, as the case with Gulf War I (but not Gulf War II).

2. The responsive retaliation cannot exceed that which would be justified by the act of aggression. For example, mass genocide would be an entirely inappropriate response to a simple border skirmish. (Or, at least in my opinion, a full-scale invasion of a sovereign nation would not be justified by a simple refusal to allow for weapons inspection; however, bombing a suspect weapons facility might be).

3. The intended purpose of warfare must have in mind the objective of restoring peace, and that objective must be reasonably obtainable. The solution must have the best interest of all involved at heart. Invading a nation because you want to see that nation's leader removed is not in the best interest of peace, particularly when that leader is pretty much powerless to actually threaten you.

4. Preemptive strikes could be justified if there is reasonable assessment of a real direct threat. For example, if, say, Cuba, began amassing missiles and aimed them at the US. However, invading a nation because there is an unverified possibility that they might have weapons is perhaps not justified.

5. There are some who think that a tyrant who treats his people unjustly can be justly overthrown, and that doing so is not only morally justifiable, but in fact necessary for the sake of the oppressed people. But again, the goals must be obtainable. For example, invading China would probably not be terribly smart. But even then, only after diplomatic pressure is given an opportunity to allow the tyrant to reconsider his unjust policies. On the other hand, if the tyrant has no real power to effect large scale oppression (i.e, there are enforced "no-fly" zones imposed by foreign countries), then full-scale war is not really necessary or justified. The governing principle would be whether the greater good for those involved would be served.

The point is, war costs lives. So before a leader commits to fighting a war, he needs to carefully consider the risks and weigh them against the possible benefits. He must not let passion or rage be his impetus, but the common good of both nations. And he must exhaust other options, and war must be his last resort. And once committed, he should apply only the force necessary to achieve his objectives, the first of which should be peace.

While there are some who would disagree with me for saying so, I do not believe Pres. Bush did all this when he committed us to the invasion of Iraq. The possible threat did not justify a full-scale war, and the stated goal of preventing development of WMD's could have been accomplished with much less force (I think a few well-placed smart bombs on one or two facilities would have done for a start--if Saddam refused to relent, we could have escalated the force until the appropriate level achieved our goals). But now that we are committed, we cannot simply withdraw: we have an obligation to the Iraqi people to repair the damage from the current conflict.

I felt that Mr. Bush allowed his passion and rage (particularly over 911) to drive him to act with more force than necessary to accomplish our goals, and to target Saddam personally. It wasn't about protecting the US from foreign attack, but about destroying that nation's government, and humiliating its leader. Did Saddam deserve it? Most definitely. But I feel like we lost the moral high ground in all this. But that's just me.

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Well, then they come back and attack your village again, and again, and again. and plus, getting revenge is Giving the man who died his Honor back. its all about Honor

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Thank you, Didymus. You've said all that needs to be said. I entirely agree.

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beep beep I'm a Jeep

ABS will put this in perspective...

I don't neccesarily like war, but I don't condemn people for it or anything.

I like dead bodies as much as... well nobody likes them as much as me. But I don't like them when they're killed. Killing and war in general is just bad. If everyone in the world disarmed, then there would be no reason to BE armed! I like my dead people NATURALLY put to rest.

I mean, war is pointless, really. It's basically "I kill your people, knowing that you will kill mine." I think that even though they go to war to PREVENT death, more death happens as a RESULT of war than would have had you let eachother to his own devices.

It's annoying that people think war can solve problems. All war does is kill people.

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Sister, now that we're grieving
Our fingers will falter
Our lungs will be leaking
All over each other and without even speaking
We'll know that it's over and smile and go greeting
Whatever comes next

I think we can all come to the conclusion that a good majority of us are anti war which is a good thing. It gives the rest of the world some hope that so many of us want to make an attempt to keep the peace.

Yet at the same time I feel that in some cases war really is nesissary. If we are threatened we have a choice to either sit back and let it happen or fight back and defend ourselves. It's never an easy choice but I really feel that in some cases it's the right thing to do.

Just my two cents...

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Oh STEVEN! I think this may finally be it you guys! After 200 hundred emails I'm finally gonna get to make out with da-da-da DEAR HOMESTAR?!

Thank you! I agree in full. As for the honor deal, it's just another human instinct that I think needs to be put under control. Do you realize how many lives have been lost with no purpose in human history just because of honor?
Has anyone seen The Interpretor? Where if someone commits a murder and is caught, they tie up the murderer to a boulder and push him into the river. They give the family of the one killed a knife, and the family has the choice to either jump into the water and cut the rope binding the murderer, or let him drown.
I think that one must cut the rope. It makes no sence to add more fuel to the fire and destroy more lives.

War is terrible and bad. But we cannot avoid it. Stupid humanity. We should go back to being cave people. Here's a great quote:

"I don't know what weapons we will be using to fight world wars three and four, but in world war five, we will be fighting with sticks and stones."

Or something along those lines. I heard it a long time ago. I love it.

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NOT A SIGNATURE!

"The War Prayer" by Mark Twain

As for me, I think war isn't a necessary part of society. All it seems like is a bunch of ridiculous ritual killing. Plus, it interferes with my belief that human life itself is more valuable than any cause, idealogy, religion, nationality, or anything else imaginable. I will not nor will I ever commit violence for my country or anyone else's, 'cos that's all fascist thought right there.

Alternatives to violence work, despite what all those war criminals and profiteers at the heads of state tell you.

Mark Twain truelly is a genius.

Hmm...for me, war is okay in certain situations. For one, as I've just learned in History class, war can be really profitable. If it wasn't for World War II, the United States would've been in the Great Depression for a lot longer, since the citizens wouldn't have jobs of creating and exporting goods to European allies.

Sometimes war is useless though, but part of something we'll always do unless our thoughts of retaliation are changed in the future. From what I've heard, we had a mass invasion planned for Japan in WWII if the two atomic bombs were to fail, but why nuke them first instead of unleashing our top man power over there? Either way, people will die, but less Japanese citizens would of probably been killed if we didn't drop the atomic bombs first, yet the American army would've probably took a major beating in their population [/partial run-on].

So, it's either way for me. I have a few other things to list, but I won't, as I don't think the information is entirely correct.

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From what I've heard, if the U.S. had invaded, it could have cost the lives of tens of thousands more American troops and up to a million Japanese. The use of the atomic bomb was pretty much necessary. They wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, and they did.

Though I think we should have detonated one in Tokyo Harbor as a warning first, rather than targeting civilians. That probably would have been enough to get them to surrender.

And I'll reiterate my point, just because I feel like it: I think that often, war is unnecessary (Spanish-American War) but other times it's inevitable (World War II).

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beep beep I'm a Jeep

Actually, I thought that they should've chosen Tokyo or something along those line as well, but then we did this unit in World History at school on the bomb. For a while that was supposed to have been the primary target, but then they realized that if they did bomb Tokyo, that would have incited such an angry backlash from the Japanese that the war would've gone on for longer. So they changed it, obviously, to a city of somewhat lesser importance, but would still have a great impact.

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I'm mostly anti-war, but I realize that it's sadly necessary to fight sometimes.

Didymus has pretty much already stated the opinion I had.

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I couldn't say. Sometimes war may be necessary to forge a nation, or even to prevent prolonged bloodshed between two opposing factions, or to stop truly destructive forces from taking over. There's no doubt that WWII needed to happen to stop the spread of Nazism in Europe, for instance.

But really it doesn't matter how just the war is supposed to be, the innocent will always suffer, especially women and children.

Also, the reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were chosen is because they had been relatively ignored in the constant bombing of Japan. Tokyo, on the other hand had pretty much had the crap bombed out of it. If you want to show someone how powerful a weapon is, you would want to use it where it would create the greatest impact. In Hiroshima, it pretty much destroyed a large portion of the city. In Tokyo, it would have knocked down a couple of buildings (the ones that the other bombings missed).
As for war, I would like to see a world where war isn't needed. Unfortunately, like some have said, you have to go to war sometimes. There are those in this world that just won't listen to you any other way.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

But what if your country or one of its allies is attacked by an aggressor? Don't you think you would have a responsibility to protect innocent victims? It was this attitude that kept the UN out of Rwanda, despite the genocide that was going on there.

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As I stated. War is not to be commited unless for self-defence. Though it should be attempted that under all costs for it to abstain.