collecting blood

Look at us,
we are foolish like melancholy clowns.
Clattering firearms are always present.
The threat of mushrooms clouds constantly rises like towers
over our beloved cities.
And yet our ignorance insists we continue.

You can’t hear it, but everywhere apart from America
bullets fly randomly like birds.
They land when they get tired.

Our traps make us linger neck-deep in crimson danger.
We can’t shut up or talk quietly.
Cooperation us unheard of between countries.

As puddles of blood collect on the grassy floor
we appear not to understand war
as a haphazardly rigorous and incessantly pointless argument.

When this war ends, an ignition will turn another.
War won’t be over until
every house, every bookstore, every library, every office,
every school, every art gallery, every movie gallery,
every village, town, and city, all restaurants and cafés
are empty on our dead planet.

- Paul Bolduc

I'm very much against war.
However, I think it's aninstinct. When feeling threatened, many animals put their ears back - then they attack. So with human (except the ear-thing). However some wars are started on a strange basis. Mostly: lust for power.
I think peace is hard to keep, 'cause some people will always seek power. We can only pray that the Earth some day join in to be one huge country - Then there wouldnt be a million leaders. Then we of course would have small local wars. And the thought of one big country is of course impossible, 'cause some people wants power and so on so on so on so on...
So to the conclusion: War first stops when human race is instinct... As he wrote in that poem...

There is no yes or no for this question, I'm not against war but I am not in favor of it. The simple reason is that it runs our world. Whole people define themselves by their armies and weapons.
If you find something more powerful than war I will change my mind...

Of course war is not the best way to run this planet, don't get me wrong.

Is there really any option than being against war? I dont get it. So maybe I'll just ignore all this.

Good one!!

I know there are people who favor war.
If peace were to come, how long would it last?

I love war (in games), my opinion about wars in reality however is neutral, as long as no one I know or care for falls victim to a war, I really don't care.

Look, ain't I popular among the mods..

Smart people think alike 8]

I will side with Ayn Rand on this one. War should only ever happen as a defence. Under no circumstances should a free nation be the aggressor in a conflict.

Armies and law enforcement are in place for protection, not conquest.

Am I against war? I am against war in the capacity that I wish that there were no need for it, but often times it is all too necessary.

this post is starting to make me rethink my views. i am still against war, that is not going to change. but how i am against is changing.

to say i was against war would be hypocritical of me howverer i am against war that is not justified. At first i would have agreed that one should only use military force to defend oneself from the agressions of others but what about those who are unable to fight fo themselves who would otherwise be bogged down by tyranny and oppression. Now don't get me wrong i'm the first person to say what Bush is doing is wrong and he's not the nicest person in the world but Iraqs people were being tortured and killed by the bath party regime so would it have been right of us to do nothing? again not the best way but should we say huh it's not on our backyard who gives a

Of corse not but the Iraq war should have been planed better because the situation now is not much better than under the bath party/Saddam!

Thousands innocent already died and every day more die!That war didn't help the Iraqi people!

The whole Iraq situation failed miserably due to poor planning in my opinion. However, terrorism is a dfficlt foe to face. It really has no one origin, it can sprout from any person, in any country. I personally think terrorists are the lowest of all criminals, as they often times deliberately kill innocents. Yes, it is good that Iraq qas liberated from Saddam, but the entire operation could have went much smoother, with a lot less casualties on both sides.

I'm 110% against the war if it's reasons are world domination. But i'm kinda neutral when it comes to wars against terrorism.

Here is the way I see The WAR on TERRORISM:

No war is going to prevent or stop terrorism. War is the result of terrorism, terrorism is the resullt of war. America is a terrorist. Terrorism cant be fought. It cant be prevented. This war in terrorism a battle that is already lost.

I am not going to argue with you on your views, they are your own, and I respect that. I would however like to object to the statement: America is a terrorist. The war in Iraq, while it may not have been a good move to attack Iraq, the fact remains that America was attacked, and defended themselves.

To call America a terrorist is in my opinion, fundamentally wrong. Terrorists conduct unlawful violence on others to advance their political or religious agendas. America's attack was justified, and therefore not of a terrorist nature.

Please keep in mind that this is no attack on your views, this is just my opinion.

EDIT: And by the way kngkilgore, I really like the quote in your sig, not usre if it's new or not, but it's nice.

I have bolded the reason for america invading Iraq, there was no large group of terrorists in Iraq before we invaded, and there were no WMDs. Now to cover their a**es our government says the war was to spread freedom and Democracy. Democracy is a form a government therefore turning this war into a struggle over politics, hence by you defenition of a terrorist, the American government is a terrorist organization.

Is there a violence which is not unlawful??? There is no such thing as a winable war anymore, no bellum iustum that could be a reason or excuse for war. And I have to agree to what Belgarion said.
Your definition makes the US-government terrorists (because war is the ultimate political thing...).

I'd like to meet you.

I'm sure if the top-folks (and terrorist-leaders) on Earth now sat down for should we say five to ten years and discussed things through, we would have peace and everyone would be happy!
I actually cannot see why anybody would want to kill innocent - want to start wars!
Human race is strange! We are worse than soiders killing eachother after breeding...

I don't disagree with fighting terrorists, but that's not what America is doing anymore, we're attacking countries because we believe they have WMDs. Saddam never supported terrorst, cause he believed they ditracted from his power, and he didn't have WMDs either, so America was complete unjustified in invading Iraq, and it doing so made it a base for terrorist activity.
Also, America is fighting "terror" in the worst way possible, by invadng Middle Eastern countries, that gives the terrorists a reason to commit further atrocities. The base way to fight terrorists is with intellegence, not the heedless invasions of countries.

[quote=Belgarion90]Also, America is fighting "terror" in the worst way possible, by invadng Middle Eastern countries, that gives the terrorists a reason to commit further atrocities. The base way to fight terrorists is with intellegence, not the heedless invasions of countries.[/quote]

That's true and I support this POV.

I can see how you could interpret Ameria's attack in that manner. However, it is there intent which makes them different from terrorists. I do not support in the slightest the Iraq war. However, it was the response to an unjustified attack against them in September of 2001. It was foolish of the States to attack Iraq based on their alleged possesion of WMDs, (just to straighten one thing out which makes america look even more dumb, Iraq never had WMDs, but according to Colan Powell, they had the parts to make them, and that was the threat.) What i think they should have done was a selective strike of the saudi arabian terrorist groups that were responsible for September 11th, instead of an invason of Iraq. That way, they could have greatly reduced the civilian casualties.

America's worst mistake on the war on terror (besides invading Iraq) was trying to fight the terrorists with conventional forces. It's pretty much like painting big bullseyes on your soldiers.

Nice to see how objective the author is.

That being said, I don't think you should confuse the Iraq war with war in general, especially since this topic is about the idea of war, not the stupid one that will be forgotten in a hundred years. People seem to have a hard time grasping that fact sometimes, people just want to kill you, and if you'd rather that not happen, you have to kill them first. It happens. It's in human nature to be combative, since it keeps the strong alive and the weak from spreading their deficiencies. Unfortunately, we no longer have a society where that happens naturally, so is it a shock that we have the problems we do? Nature has to manage our population SOMEHOW, or everyone dies. We keep curing diseases, and we're eliminating starvation....Hell, how else are we supposed to die here? We've already made too many people, and not everyone can have the privledge of living to their golden years. Sometimes people have to die. It's part of the life cycle. To be fair though, I can see how that is hard to swallow objectively, especially if it's you or someone close.

We do? And are we really? Nature really is trying to find it's way all the time but of course we have a hard time accepting that.

And sorry for bringing this back up, I haven't really had time to read all topics earlier.