The Best Reason Now To Be An Expat In Argentina...

[Jaredberryman]

A beautiful theory, but it is possible only if your opponent is reasonably civilized.

It worked for e.g. Gandhi in India - but it would not have worked, had the British simply killed him immediately after he started his movement.

It absolutely did not work in Iraq, Libya, Liberia, Rwanda, ex-Jugoslavia, ... long list

It absolutely does not work in Syria, North Korea, China/Tibet, Congo, ... long list

You are implying that Iraqis, Libyans, Liberians, Rwandans, Yugoslavs, Syrians, North Koreans, Chinese, etc., are not civilized. I wonder what they would say about that? Here is what I am thinking: if our military were trained with non-violent resistance tactics, and we deployed our military in Syria and they used those non-violent tactics, the war in Syria would be over by now possibly or very soon. Human beings are human beings, not matter where they are from. I am unaware that these kinds of tactics were used in any of those places. Pacifism does not mean "sit and do nothing". It means to resist injustice, but without violence. In many of those cases, the United States just did nothing at all. This kind of resistance also only works if it is organized and many people do it. But it works.

 

[Jaredberryman]

The recent "debate" over intervention in Syria and Libya illustrates much of this. One side wanted to invade, the other side just wanted to bomb the bejeezus out of them. That's the extent of the spectrum. The option that Matías mentioned of not attacking other countries doesn't even enter into the conversation.

I see pacifist positions like Tex's refusal to fight ever as being utterly impossible to defend morally. But then look at what Dirtboy said: he would fight to defend the US its people or its assets or its allies. And this was in response to my having given a very abridged list of countries where the US military has committed unrestrained atrocities. Look at that list again: when did Iraq, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama or anyone else attack the US its assets, people or allies? And I didn't even list half of the countries the US has attacked. And in every attack there are always atrocities committed by the troops. So much so that it makes the ROE look kind of ornamental. Hell the Japanese Empire had ROE too.

There are cases of wars that could even be classified as humanitarian interventions, but the US has never fought in any of them. Instead it is consistently guilty of the international crime of aggression, what the Nuremberg court referred to as " the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

I am curious as to why you think pacific resistance is impossible to defend morally? I think violence and war are impossible to defend morally. Please note that pacific resistance does not mean to sit on your hands and do nothing. It means to resist, but without any forms of violence. When you use violence in war, here are some of the consequences:

1. Innocent people are almost always killed that have nothing to do with the conflict.
2. Almost always, those that participate in the war do not adhere to wartime rules and do something despicable beyond killing enemy troops.
3. Violence brings a toll financially upon the country where the war is at after the war.
4. It also causes problems financially for the other country, too.
5. The participants in the war's lives are often ruined by the things they were forced to do, after the war is finished.
6. Almost always, there is a propensity to want revenge. This creates a perpetual cycle. For instance, al Qaeda destroys the world trade center, then we invade Afghanistan, now al Qaeda will attack the United States, and then the United States will attack Al Qaeda. The only way to break the cycle is forgiveness, and that can take a very, very long time.
7. Violence in and of itself is morally wrong. It is wrong to murder someone. I am not saying that war always equates with murder, but the point here is that it is morally wrong to commit violence in and of itself.

I could go on. Non-violent resistance, however, has been proven to be effective when done in large numbers and in an organized way. If you can accomplish the same thing, a correction of an injustice, and use non-violent resistance to do it, then how is it morally inferior to violent resistance?

I would certainly like to know what you think on this. How is violent resistance morally superior to non-violent resistance?

 

[ghost]

You are implying that Iraqis, Libyans, Liberians, Rwandans, Yugoslavs, Syrians, North Koreans, Chinese, etc., are not civilized. I wonder what they would say about that? Here is what I am thinking: if our military were trained with non-violent resistance tactics, and we deployed our military in Syria and they used those non-violent tactics, the war in Syria would be over by now possibly or very soon. Human beings are human beings, not matter where they are from. I am unaware that these kinds of tactics were used in any of those places. Pacifism does not mean "sit and do nothing". It means to resist injustice, but without violence. In many of those cases, the United States just did nothing at all. This kind of resistance also only works if it is organized and many people do it. But it works.

That's a wonderful dream but it looks like swiss cheese when those other humans are carrying AK47s. Better yet, just don't go there, stay away and focus on fortress America there's no need to be passive if you are absent.

 

[GS_Dirtboy]

Tex,

I very much appreciate what you are saying and I think non-violent resistance certainly has a place and is effective in certain circumstances such as social change - eg Ghandi, MLK, etc.

The problem lies when people come to the party ready to kill you. Their whole mission in life is to kill you, your family, your friends, and it doesn't really matter if they die in the process. I don't see how non-violent resistance will work in those circumstances. Can you give some examples?

The phrase that sticks in my mind is, "What if they gave a war and no one came?" I wish that were the case. However, the only people then that show up are the other guys - usually heavily armed.

If we were all sensitive, enlightened people then enduring peace might have a chance. That isn't human nature - at least from what I've seen in my life.

 

[dennisr]

If I may chime in: USA and wars
For me, the big deal is trying to understand the passiveness of the American public. Most do not have any skin in the game anymore when it comes to combat. When the draft/conscription was the law of the land, most families had a vested interest and were very conscious and vocal about sending Jonny off to kill a gook for god. Vietnam protests changed a lot of things for the Government and put the fear of God in them. Citizens let it be known they were not going to let the government send their sons off to war for some BS cause. When the draft was disbanded, a lot of things changed for American policy. No longer did the average Joe have a family member in the military and most of all, none of the political bastards in DC had any family members in the military. It is no big deal for them to OK a conflict. I still blame the American public for not being more vocal. After experiencing the Vietnam war and seeing all the turmoil it caused in the USA, it is still hard to believe for this old man Washington is allowed to get us into conflicts like Iraq. Baffles me. World is screwed up, but God is on our side. My two cents.

 

[EdRooney]

Tex,

I disagree with the others arguing against your pacifism.

Non-violence is a tactic to reach a goal: stopping harm to others. Usually it is the most effective tactic. Non-violence was successful in achieving Indian independence and improved civil rights in the US not because the British or the White Southerners were somehow more benevolent than say Bashar Assad. Quite to the contrary, the evilness of the aggressor has nothing to do with whether the tactic will work.

Yet at the end of the day non-violence is just that: a tactic not the goal. And Gandhi himself was extremely clear on this point (Gandhi is to the left what Adam Smith is to the right: a saint whom we worship but never actually read). If you read what Gandhi actually says, he despised virulently all forms of cowardice, especially an unwillingness to help someone who is being attacked. So for example Gandhi said:

My nonviolence does not admit of running away from danger and leaving dear ones unprotected. Between violence and cowardly flight, I can only prefer violence to cowardice.

That said, 99.9% of the wars that are fought are fought for reasons of cowardice, rather than reasons of truly defending the defenceless. But we should not mistake the tactic for stopping them with the goal.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

The US is under a dictatorship where companies rules through legal brives (lobby). Nobody voted those companies.

 

[ghost]

You are exactly right of the Gandhi quote . However, "That said, 99.9% of the wars that are fought are fought for reasons of cowardice". I can not agree on this term. Greed is the real operative.

 

[Jaredberryman]

That's a wonderful dream but it looks like swiss cheese when those other humans are carrying AK47s. Better yet, just don't go there, stay away and focus on fortress America there's no need to be passive if you are absent.

This guy took on a tank by himself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU. He was hardly swiss cheese. I think I agree that there are many times where we do not need to show up.

 

[Jaredberryman]

Tex,

I very much appreciate what you are saying and I think non-violent resistance certainly has a place and is effective in certain circumstances such as social change - eg Ghandi, MLK, etc.

The problem lies when people come to the party ready to kill you. Their whole mission in life is to kill you, your family, your friends, and it doesn't really matter if they die in the process. I don't see how non-violent resistance will work in those circumstances. Can you give some examples?

The phrase that sticks in my mind is, "What if they gave a war and no one came?" I wish that were the case. However, the only people then that show up are the other guys - usually heavily armed.

If we were all sensitive, enlightened people then enduring peace might have a chance. That isn't human nature - at least from what I've seen in my life.

A true non-violent resistance has not been really tried as a large group effort besides MLK and Ghandi in modern times. So we don't know for sure that it would be successful. However, I did read a study about how it is estimated that in the American Civil War, combatants would intentionally fire their rifles into the air so as to not injure the enemy 80 percent of the time. Much of what the military currently does is find ways to get their troops to disconnect from the reality of what they are actually doing. They have lowered that number substantially. Now, we have remote controlled drones. This is so that we can disconnect ourselves totally from the reality of what we do. Statistics like these and a study of human nature show that we are not so quick to kill unarmed people. Something doesn't sit well. It is true there are psychopaths and brainwashed people (like children in African armies), but even these damaged people are eventually going to think twice about what they are doing if those standing up to them resist them, but without violence.

For instance, in Botswana, there is terrible murder and genocide much like in Rwanda based on tribal/ethnic roots. At a small school, madmen entered with the purpose of killing all those of one of the other ethnic group. The school was a mixed group. Those students that were not of the hated ethnic group literally covered up the other students with the purpose of protecting them. These madmen just killed every single one of the students. Now, one might look at that and say that it was a waste and did not work. But this school has become a rallying point for the nation of Botswana and a wake-up call to everyone that the violence must stop. Because of the actions of these brave people, Botswana is hopefully turning in a new direction. Sooner or later, actions like these will overwhelm evil actions.

However, whether or not it works is also not necessarily why I would argue for such a thing. I think that even if it does not work, it is morally superior to violence.