In memoriam: Vukovar and Skabrnja

[Mikey]

I'm not saying that war is always avoidable. I'm saying that isolationism is very easy as to use as an excuse for not doing the right thing. In the example I gave, would providing asylum for that group of refugees from the Holocaust have dragged the US into the war? Of course not, but the US (and everyone else except Canada) had a very easy excuse to wash their hands of the matter.

It's not always a matter of actively pursuing a course of action; it's sometimes as simple as NOT choosing the clearly wrong course.

[Deepcrush]

What is the right cause? How would you define it? Who should be the ones to fight for that cause?

[Mikey]

Again, I'm not advocating fighting per se; while there are times that I personally may deem it necessary, it's not germane to this discussion. What I'm advocating is NOT using insularity as an excuse to avoid promoting humanitarianism or human rights.

I don't necessarily want to join the Peace Corps, but as an example: it's been around for a while now and hasn't been itself responsible for leading the US into war, has it?

There are degrees in everything, of course, and there are social problems which I think the US would be better served resolving at home before trying to do so on an international scale. But if a boatload of people comes to one of our harbors, seeking simply to enter because to have stayed home would have meant extermination, then if needs be I will be the one to say that it's wrong to turn them away.

[Deepcrush]

"What is the right cause? How would you define it? Who should be the ones to fight for that cause?"

I was speaking in a whole here. What would be good enough reason to fight vs what isn't? How would you define the right and wrong of it? If you do fight then who should it be?

[Mikey]

Protecting the lives of people who are not interested or involved in political conflict is a good palce to start. Should the US have gone into WWII before Pearl Harbor, due to the enforcement of the ghettoes and the attacks of Kristallnacht? Yes. Should we have interceded when Pol Pot began his killings? Yes. Should we have gone to Southeast Asia because the frogs couldn't hold their colonial possession at Dien Bien Phu? Not at all.

A clarification of the line may be found here: should tsarist Russia have campaigned agaisnt the cossacks for their habitual pogroms, looting, and raiding? Sure. Should the Stalinist USSR have prosecuted the genocide and starvation of Ukraine? Of course not, even though it is the ancestral homeland (esp. the Hutsul region) of the cossacks.

[Deepcrush]

Who else should be involved? Is it just the US or should there be others?

[Mikey]

I don't presume to speak for any other nations, as I am not a citizen for any other nations. IMHO, any nation which claims to be a first-world country, a/o wants its voice heard on the global stage, should really put their money where their mouth is.

[Deepcrush]

The problem is that I don't ever see that happening.

[Mikey]

You're right, of course. I said "should," not "will." As it stands, there's us and the UK, Australia and Canada in smaller numbers, and half-hearted lip service from the Reich.

[Deepcrush]

You forget Japan and Korea but they have thier own problems to deal with.

[Captain Seafort]

The Koreans certainly are more interested in keeping their obnoxious sibling the other side of the boarder. The Japanese are still suffering from the collective shame and embarressment of what happened last time they played a major role in world affairs - their constituion expressly forbids overseas military involvement I believe.

[Deepcrush]

Well, I'm not sure about that but I know that the Treaty they signed at the end WWII says that they are limited to a armed force count of 100,000 and only the U.S. Congress can approve more. Which, they haven't.