Violence never solved anything

Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. It ended many wars and most mass murderers just fine.

Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. They don't seem to remember WWII, or the various mass murderers that violence ended. So we many resort to violence too readily, but if the other side won't stop their violence, sometimes your violence is the better choice.

ℹ️ Info

~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2022-06-07

Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. They don't seem to remember WWII, or the various mass murderers that violence ended.

There's a saying that, "it is only when a mosquito lands on a man's testicles that he realizes there is always a way to solve problems without using violence". And it's true, too many resort to violence, too quickly.

But the opposite extreme of trying to talk a serial sociopath out of rape or murder is a waste of time. While violence should be the last resort, sometimes it's better than the alternative.

In Iraq you had a choice of tolerate a murdering despot, or end him.

Is the costs of peace higher than the costs of war?[edit | edit source]

War is wrong? Violence never solved anything? Those people seem to forget that violence solved WWII. It stopped the Taliban from enslaving people. It ended Saddam’s reign of terror. It ends most wars. Most serial criminals only end, when caught, and many end in violent resistance to arrest. Sometimes the alternatives to war are worse than war.

Ask the Jews in Auschwitz if the U.S. going to war was better than the alternative. Gandhi didn't think so. He thought the Jews should have committed mass suicide to protest what Hitler was doing to them. I disagree.

You could ask the Somali’s, Rawandans, Cambodian dead if they felt war would have been better than what happened... of course you can't do that, because they're dead. But I bet almost everyone would have wished that they had fought harder, or that others had fought harder for them.

Sadly violence is sometimes the only solution that can stop the violent.

Price for peace[edit source]

Main article: Vietnam/Price for peace

In Indochina the peaceniks wanted peace at any price, and for the U.S. to get out of Vietnam, despite multiple warnings by the CIA about what would happen. The peaceniks got their way, the benevolent communist people’s party got control, and what was the cost?

3,979,000 deaths in Cambodia
1,813,000 deaths in Vietnam
250,000 in Laos
a total of 6,042,000 dead
This doesn't count millions enslaved, and millions of other refugees driven from their homes and having all their property taken.
This also doesn't count that the peaceniks actions (in response to puppet master Marxist from Russia/China funding/leading them), lead to far weaker position in negotiations and politicians trying to micromanage the war. Both likey extended the war and cost more lives, but we'll never know for sure.

We do know that their drive to get us out of South Asia (and keep us out of area) helped Pol Pot's rise to power, the Khmer Rouge, and the killing of millions of innocent Cambodians (which the CIA had been warning against). Cause and effect. Unexpected consequences. Life can be tough. Tougher if you're stupid. Of course the peaceniks meant well, and may have been righteous in wanting us the hell out of South Asian affairs; and they were probably right that we should have never been in there. But there were very high costs for their actions too - as there always are.

During the Vietnam war 500 Americans per month were dying (47,378 total), less lives lost during the entire war than many single bombings of WWII. After we pulled out, the monthly death rate jumped to roughly the entire U.S. war total, each month for a decade. The Peaceniks have never made a peep during the slaughter of all those innocent people. They never admitted that the CIA was right, and they were wrong. They never considered the cost of their philosophy or that of their allies. What they said with their silence was that the lives of millions of slanty-eyed gooks weren't worth the life of a single American. They washed their hands of their mess and blamed it on not getting out sooner. But the truth is they were looking at only the cost of war, and ignoring the cost of peace.

Afghanistan[edit | edit source]

In Afghanistan we gave the U.N. over 15 years to fix the problems. 1.8 Million people died because of that patience. Finally, we lost our patience; went in, eliminated one of the most brutal regimes in history (the Taliban), and have helped them rebuild a democracy.

Many criticize us for doing it or complain about the problems still there. And it's true, you can't fix a problem for someone else. They’re not close to a utopia, and you can’t turn a 7th century tribal/feudal culture into a civilized modern country overnight. Utopia it or not, the worst things going on there today are still far better than the alternative if we’d let the status quo go on. That doesn't make the war right, but it makes the alternative more wrong.

Iraq[edit | edit source]

When we went into Iraq the criticisms of us got worse.

Over a million lives lost because of the Iran-Iraq war
About half a million were lost due to the Kuwait-Iraq war.
Chemical attacks (by Saddam) resulted in over 30,000 dead
Human rights watch says as many as 100,000 Kurds slaughtered, and 250,000 people were killed during the uprisings in the south
That's not counting purges, prison exterminations (tens of thousands), disease, starvation, rape and torture rooms, and so on (another few hundred thousand).
Let's say 2,200,000+ people died because of Saddam as the cost of appeasement and tolerance of the intolerable. That's not counting over a million refugees, or the millions enslaved or that died because of the U.N. sanctions.

Our Iraq war cost a fraction of those lives (roughly 8,000 in the war counting both sides, plus about double that because of the terrorists) and now they have hope for the future. Which is honestly better? Millions, or tens of thousands dead? That’s looking at war like a rational adult instead of an emotional doey eyed child.

The cost of peace sometimes is far worse than the cost of war. Many in Iraq said as much before the war, and wanted the war to come. Iraq was a horrible place under Saddam, with no hope. The people were begging for change but couldn’t fix things on their own. It was just the Europeans, Russians and Chinese were making too much money off Iraqi suffering to listen.

👁️ See also

Iraq War - Disagree with American policy or bumbling implementations of that policy. Be anti-war. Just be honest and consistent
Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 - The war on Islamic terror didn't start on 9/11 and wasn't about Osama Bin Laden, they were symptoms of something bigger.
Preemptive War - Iraq was the first preemptive war except for all the others.
Legality of Iraq war - No war is legal or illegal, there's only moral or immoral -- and all wars are immoral (some just more than others).
Give it more time... - Some have said we should have waited for France or the U.N. to change their minds, or for sanctions to work...
Violence never solved anything - Some say war/violence is wrong or that it never solves anything. It ended many wars and most mass murderers just fine.
Bush lied - Bush didn't lie: the world's intelligence disagreed on specifics, but all agreed that Saddam was trying to get WMD's.
Valerie Plame - Ex-CIA agent lies that she was outted by Bush Admin. Media perpetuates the lies for years.
Quotes/Iraq War - Leftists want to pretend they had nothing to do with the Iraq War. History (and these quotes) begs to differ.
Muslims can't do democracy - Muslims aren't capable of a successful democracy".
Iraq/Set a date for withdrawal - Some claimed we should set a hard date and pull out of Iraq. That's stupid. Never telegraph your moves to the opposition.
America made Saddam - During the mid 2000's it was popular among the dim of wit, and big of mouth, to claim that Saddam was created by America.
Iraq is because of Israel-Palestine - Israel/Palestine is a convenient scapegoat for all problems in the middle east. But only rubes buy it as the root problem.
Iraq is because of oil - All the time I hear people say that the U.S. invaded Iraq because of oil, money, or some other dumber reason. Oil is not a dumb reason.
The U.S. targeted innocents - I’m flabbergasted that such stupidity is ever said, let alone how often I’ve heard it repeated.
Iraq War Costs - Everything comes with costs, action or inaction. The price of war, the price of peace.
Patriot Act - The 2002 version doens't bug me, what it might devolve into does. (Is it a slippery slope).
Halliburton - NYT invented “evil conspiracy” to pay off a company for cheating us. The rubes believed it.
Guantanamo - The left made a big deal about Guantanamo, where we had the right to treat people far worse than we did.
Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was one small group of U.S. Soldiers that something bad things, were caught and punished quickly.
Security in Iraq - Militarily Iraq was one of the greatest successes in the history of mankind. Sociologically? We'll see.
Americans are imperialists - People that say Americans are imperialists don’t understand America (or what imperialism means).
Iraq's impact on Terrorism - Poverty doesn't cause terrorism; totalitarianism and a lack of control does.
We should have done nothing - Of course we can’t know if doing nothing is ever the better choice or not. But we can look at some facts.

🔗 More

Iraq
Republic of Iraq, in Western Asia, borders Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria.

War
War, what is it good for? Democrats seem to like is as a tool for dividing us. (Imagined Imperialism).

Vietnam
Vietnam is a place in South East Asia where Democrats got millions killed, enslaved or refugeed.

Falsehoods
Iraq War Falsehoods (things that just aren't true).

🔗 Links

Tags: Iraq War Vietnam Iraq War/Falsehoods Violence Afghanistan