The liberals' conundrum: When is "supporting war" justifable?

 I dunno. It's easy to say we're for "peace," and certainly unnecessary wars (like W Bush's foray into Iraq) were utter financial and humanitarian disasters, with no kind of success to point to. Cynics say that the US gov't does whatever it needs to, to boost the profits of the weapons makers. Mere lives are expendable.


I'd like to support the (below cut-and-pasted) sentiment by World Beyond War), but it feels naive. It's catchy to say "let's spend the next $100 trillion on the needs of our own people." If only we would.

The biggest reason that the US remains unattacked--the reason you don't have to worry about missiles or vengeful enemy soldiers entering your house-- is our powerful military. It's not because everyone loves us; they know we are one of the most-violent, most-meddling countries on the planet. The biggest reason Ukraine is still a free country is our military aid. Probably could say the same about Israel; not sure. This is a very difficult issue for liberals of all stripes.

Israel is slaughtering Palestinian civilians, far in excess of Hamas' slaughter of Israelis. We slaughtered civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and Syria. Russia is murdering Ukrainian civilians. The only large, relatively peaceful country is China, and yet we are assailing them, our most-important trading partner with whom we have a long historical alliance, for their IP theft and computer attacks.

I know what would happen if we sent no more military aid to Ukraine or Israel. It would be pretty awful. This is the conundrum. Especially because we are now almost completely bankrupt, and at some point our currency will be worthless and then we will not be able to help anyone, not even ourselves. Trying to protect democracy everywhere, while destroying it at home, does not feel like a winning strategy.



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