Give peace a chance!

I just read a post on someone's blog quoting a Bob Dylan song about how the 'war machine' and the 'military industrial complex' causes us to go to war and how we feed weapons to everyone in the world which just causes more instability.

I had to respond because, like most youth, he is kind of disillusioned. (Hmmmmm, could that be why Obama is going after the college vote?)

Basic economics teaches us about supply and demand. If a lot of people need to be fed, we will have a vast 'farm industrial complex'. If we have a lot of sick people, we have a vast 'medical industrial complex'. If a lot of people want sports gear, we have a vast 'Nike industrial complex'. Same for oil and defense. When there is a need from millions and millions of people, there will be an industrial response. And typically, if there is competition, there will be technological gains. If this was not the case, we would still be producing chain mail, catapults and the flail in mass quantities to defend ourselves.

It is easy to wax poetic about peace and war, and as long as the conflict is happening somewhere else, talk is great. But what happens if the conflict starts affecting you personally? We in the west have been blessed (except for 9-11, 3-11 and 7-7), so there has not been the close-to-home urgency to fix the problem.

Here is my response to his post:

Robbie:

You can tell I am an old fart because I dOn'T usE fUNNy ltrz whn i typ. Reading your post, I have to make a comment or two.


Watching the Chinese and what they do (and the Russians, too) makes me seethe with anger. What is one to do? Have you ever had that totally obnoxious buddy that you can't seem to make listen that eventually needs to have his face punched in to get his attention? Or the asshole at school that is always pushing the geeks from the debate team around and no one ever confronts him? Do you think that asking these guys to "just cut it out" is really going to change their behavior?

If you look at the world, most of the countries that are getting their asses handed to them have no defense. Let's not get into how the aggressors got their 'tools of aggression'. That genie has been out of the bottle for way longer than you and I will ever know.

The US (sorry Canadians) are currently in the position of being the last man standing against most of the $#!7-holes of the world. While everyone under the US umbrella (Europe, Japan, Korea, Canada, etc.) pay virtually nothing for defense and put most of their money toward failing, unsustainable social programs, Uncle Sugar is spending blood and treasure making it at least a little dangerous for the international 'wack-jobs' to come after the group.

So, what do you do when Russia invades Georgia? When the Muslims slaughter defenseless women and children in Darfur? Al Qaeda blows up tourists in Malaysia? Palestinians blow up anything they can get near? Iran threatens the European continent with nukes because they are all 'infidels'? Pakastani 'tribal' people massacre people in Afghanistan? China clamps down on peaceful monks in Tibet? Chavez funds terrorist FARC in Columbia and holds innocents hostage as pawns for over 5 years with no intent on letting them go? Just what are you supposed to do? Sit around a table, sip bottled water and 'negotiate'?

Check out how well negotiating with Kim Jung Il has gone! Trusty little bastard isn't he? Remember the saying "Fool me once..."? Well what do you do after you have been fooled 20 times?

At some point, someone needs to take a little 'action'. Who is it going to be? How do you do it without hurting anyone?

John Lennon said "All we are saying is give peace a chance." Hell, peace has had every opportunity to be dominant, but aggression ALWAYS trumps pacificism. Even Jesus said to turn the other cheek only one time.

The perps almost never get hit in war. Saddam was a notable exception. Most wars are like chess games (just like Dylan said.) If we are going to have war, we need to take it to the ones stirring it up. I have ALWAYS believed that it is the 2% of assholes in the world that make it hell for the 98% of us that are left. But SOMETIMES SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. Talk is cheap and usually grossly ineffective. Something has to be done. Who is gonna do it and how?

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