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War is bad. Defending against war, that can be justified. But starting a war, well that is presumably very bad. Not that starting a war could never be justified. Just that the bar should be set really high. Not it sort of seems like war might help something. No, you, and those watching you, should really worry that you are accepting excuses to start a war for other reasons.
Among all the policy arguments I accept, the above argument against war seems among the most solid. And among all the things policy can get wrong, war seems among the worst. So for me, war policy tends to trump other considerations. I haven’t said much about how I vote on this blog, but now I’ll say: I often vote on US presidents primarily based on their war stance. I voted against Bush in ’04, and I’ll vote against Obama in ’12, because they both started wars without meeting the high standards I hold for justifiably starting a war.
I’ve argued before that the US should cut its vast military spending in half. Our spending half the world’s military budget seems to embolden us to start wars – this makes me all the more eager for that cut.
Added: Bryan Caplan has long had a similar position.
War Is Bad
you need to give more things plz!!
the World Bank supplies loans to third world countries (it puts them in spiraling debt), is headed by NATO countries, and is NOT a humanitarian organisation. So its not really a good source to find out what people in Africa, or Middle East or Asia are doing vis a vis poverty.
In fact, most crises are dealt with by humanitarian non-governmental organisations and are caused by war and genocide (where are these weapons coming from?). We have been campaigning for years to cancel 3rd world debt - how can peasant farmers pay you? and why should they, they've been self-sufficient for thousands of years and just because the World Bank/IMF gave some masochist who calls himself president (Aka Mugabe) a massive loan, does that mean the peasants who never voted him in in the first place need to pay the "World Bank" and join your economic system; they're tribal people, that's how they lived for thousands of years until Europeans enforced false borders around them and now they cannot migrate and preserve their traditions.
Did you know that most of these countries are being bled dry because they export most of their produce to pay for debt (cotton, flowers, vegetables, tea, rice) whilst being paid pittance? Due to an unfair system of governance and land ownership imported from - you guessed it - the West. So when will you learn to leave other cultures alone and let them help themselves? We're not stupid you know!!!;-)