How to Decide to go to War

Post Reply New Topic

I read this in an old Robert Heinlein book. Seemed like a good idea to me. Other than in self defense, to go to war with another country would require a citizens vote - and only those eligible for military service could vote on going to war. Those who voted "yes" would automatically be drafted. The next drafted would be those who didn't vote. Last would be those who voted "no."

no

most people _want_ to avoid war. human will is stronger than reason.

and so a nation would be in danger of voting no, having no real defenses, and get steamrolled

A good concept, but there are times you must go to war when nobody really wants to.

So this idea seems to be some what good, but with whom are we to rage against and with what? Though im only 15, 3 years gos by really fast

Here in the US, a new position was created under the previous administration whose primary job is to determine just when and where to start a war. I believe it's called "Halliburton's CFO"

My thoughts...

I love it.



And for good reason.



I don't agree with what you're getting at. Reason should dictate that war is unnecessary and absurd. There is always a better way of going about things.



If there was actually a threat, there would be enough people voting yes. If my family was in danger, I would vote yes.



Very rarely is this true. People think it's true, but it's just not. There is almost always a better alternative.


In general, people, especially in America, do not understand the true cost of war. I believe that if we had the sort of imagery coming back from Iraq that we had during the Vietnam era, this war would already be over. But we are disconnected from the true reality, all wrapped up in ridiculous ideas of "terrorism" and "bravery" and "service".

Its God's choice

wat?

President Bush was told by God to go to war.

That would indicate he was psychotic.

"If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia" - Thomas Szazs.


The OP did mention a vote wouldn't be required for self-defense.

It's a bad idea. It would take weeks to organize a vote when a decision to go to war would potentially need to be made in hours. If such a system was in place, we would have not been able to address the Cuban missile crisis or make decisions like whether or not we needed to support Israel in the Yom Kippur war.

I'm holding out hope that you're being sarcastic and I'm just not picking up on it.

Perhaps he was referring to Thor.

The book is Starship Troopers (yes, the movie was based on it....loosely..very loosely...

The actual point was that you couldn't vote at all unless you'd been through the military.

No, maybe Bush was being saracstic when he said it?

He was likely doing what most people do when they say things like that; ie. recalling all the things that Christianity preaches about what is good (in our founding father's sense freedom, liberty, hope) and that far more likely than hearing God's voice he just had that warm fuzzy feeling that he was doing the right thing for an oppressed people - thus God told him without words.

Which, I'll have to mention, we really need to be careful about advocating war on those grounds; ie. there was by chance a guy names Sun Tzu who lived...oh, maybe a milennia and half ago or two who said quite specifically that if your PR and morale wars have lost, that's when ground war comes and ground war, or bombing, or anything, are really a sign that what's been tried already has been failed. So, I think there are far more productive ways to scratch that itch or guide a despot off of his pedestal as his people's psychology swings out from under him. Originally though I thought the idea of taking Iraq though was as such where it was to depose a tyrant who was in the right kind of place geographically to aid revolution from within in other 'Axis of Evil' countries and lowering our need to have to do any more nation building than we already were looking at. Can't really say if it has paid off we don't know how the region would be otherwise today if Sadam were still in power, two nuclear despots rather than one could have been a possibility though and I can see where that's hard to laugh off.