Re: virus: Ethical War - Good or Bad?

Lior Golgher (efraim_g@netvision.net.il)
Fri, 03 Jan 1997 12:17:09 -0800


Alex wrote:
Humans all hunt and use the same resources; we can all eat the same
things, use the same things. Between such animals, violent combat is
often seen, such as baby birds casting siblings from the nest, because
all the resources each need they hold in common.
-----
Each year, the world spends approximately $1 trillion
($1,000,000,000,000 US) on military expenditures.
The combined total cost of various global programs that would solve the
major human need and environmental
problems we face today is approximately a quarter of it. See
http://www.worldgame.org/~wgi/resource/doright/wwants.html for more
details. So that violent combat is the one to consume resources, not the
6 billion siblings that the terran nest hosts. All this provided that we
limit population growth, otherwise we'll fall into the Malthusian
thesis.

When wars cost so much /for whom/? Look at Desert Storm. Look at the
utter devestation that occured to the Kuwaiti oil fields and recognize
that most of the civillian destruction occured at the hands of the
retreating troops. The Geneva Conventions and other `moral'
limitations don't really matter much to the eventual cost.
-----
That's right. All sides shove Geneva Conventions right up their ass as
soon as they engage in actual struggle. It was the American army who
used napalm and deforstation chemicals in Vietnam, not the bad guys.
Wars' moral limitations only influence the public opinion about the cost
of war, not its actual cost. Leaders of all sides flatter the noble
moral values upon which they stand, and the abominable violations
preformed by the enemy, so a clear black-white picture could be stamped
into the soldiers' minds. But in reality all are just as cruel.
Once you abolish all conventions and endanger the leaders' safety in any
conflict in which they'll be involved, they won't go into conflicts for
such minor causes.

In 1990-1 Bush could inflict great damage over foreign terrains with no
danger to American soil. But today we have terrorists obtaining
non-conventional weapons, and all sides could be striked on their very
own soft chest.

Lior.