I don't see how I can say war is wrong in principle, but support each war that came along in practice. The life of one of our soldiers must be worth more than the life of one of their soldiers, right? How else can we have any wars at all? I don't want any Canadian soldiers to die, but I don't want any enemy soldiers to die either. I don't really want anyone to die. There is bravery on both sides of a fire fight, otherwise it wouldn't be a fight
Joining the military means agreeing to bomb whatever country the politician who happens to be Prime Minister (probably with thirty-six per cent of the vote) says to. Remember when we didn't trust or respect politicians?
It is hard for me to get past the fact that war is the justification of killing, is saying, “It is okay to kill these people. Do as much of it as you can.” If that is what 'supporting the troops' means, can I oppose what is being done while supporting those who do it?
If we show we value democracy and tolerance by shooting the enemy in the face at every opportunity, we can also show it by questioning the idea of war and the justness of politicians. Democracy is defended more by exercising dissent here than by bombing anyone an ocean away.
Is it really less practical to look for peaceful ways to resolve problems than it was to spend 18 billion dollars sending troops half a world away for eleven years? We know what we are willing to sacrifice to fight wars, what are we willing to sacrifice to not have wars? War is never the last resort because you always had the option of sacrificing the thing the war is fought for.
The problem with fighting a war on terrorism is that war is terrorism, just seen from our side. The opposite of terrorism is not a drone strike, the opposite of terrorism is the same as the opposite of war, that is, diplomacy.
If we keep ISIS from forming a state - and states are things you can do diplomacy with, they have borders and economies and governments and interests - and just kill large numbers of them, how do we cope with what emerges from that war, which will be...another war. A war we will fight by bombing and they will fight by encouraging attacks domestically.
At what point does this end? When we stop bombing them in their countries and when criminal attacks in our countries are dealt with as criminal attacks. Ending the Baader-Mienhof terrorists in Germany or the Red Brigade terrorists in Italy did not necessitate the bombing of anyone (least of all Germany and Italy).
Denying ISIS a state will not end terrorism. Nothing will end terrorism, the way nothing ends murder. We just live with the risk of it, have laws against it, put people in jail for it, try to build good citizens who don't want to do it. What makes us think we can eliminate terrorism if we can't eliminate murder? Murder doesn't stop us from living our lives, exercising our freedoms, and ensuring due process, nor should it. Should anything?
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