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Originally Posted by djacq75
Um, I was not asking why we should know what Roosevelt and Churchill's strategic objectives were. I asked why we should give a damn whether they were accomplished if doing so was to cost an additional 120,000 lives.
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Which goes right back to the purpose of war. If at a negotiation table were honest men negotiating, then human life has value. Once one party makes human life irrelevant, then either the other party must surrender (Chamberlin) or all parties must now regard human life as only secondary (war).
In war, human lives are wasted - spent like capital funds. War derates the value to human life to be only another military resource. Don't for one minute forget that. Never worry about human life as paramount once war breaks out. That only makes one a loser. Once in war, human life must lose value for more important purposes.
Suggested is that war could have ended without those additional 120,000 lost lives. But that is irrelevant. We were no longer at a negotiation table where human life has such value. Until we get back to a negotiation table, then human life is only another expendable military asset or target. Cold, hard, and it is called reality. Anything less means war may be lost or that another war must be fought. This from someone that Urbane Guerilla considers too liberal or Democratic and that MaggieL did not understand? You tell me how someone so ruthless could be so.
I don't like it. But that reasoning is also why we must have a smoking gun to justify war. BTW it is also why Patton was so good (old blood and guts) and yet probably saved so many American lives.
Bottom line point is that if one goes to war, then human life must be regarded as something completely expendable until negotiations will start. If one is not willing to make that commitment, then one does not belong in war or may just create another war - ie WWI may have only created WWII. Welcome to justification for the liberation of Kuwait AND why Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfovitz, et al only destroyed (squandered) an oppurtunity created by Swartzkopf and Powell. If you don't understand what 'squander' means here, then you are not ruthless enough to call for war.
Whether those 120,000 lives could have been saved is secondary. Until a conflict gets to a negotiation table, the leader spends people like a corporate president spends his capital. Most coporate advertising dollars are wasted. But he must spend anyway. Currency is what human life becomes once negotiations break down into war.
To worry about 120,000 lives when war has not yet terminated is to be too liberal or simply too naive. Or it is to be too right wing conservative as to get into a war due to penis based intelligence. Either extreme: both are examples of why extremists tend to be of lesser intelligence.
It is war. Life is something to be spent. Be very careful before another president in 30 years lies like Johnson & Nixon in 1960s and George Jr in 2002. Such men forget they work for us - forget what is an American patriot. Such men think we are only capital for them to spend - defines a dictator mentality. If one needs a definition of evil, two examples are Nixon and George Jr. Both would kill rather than solve problems at a negotiation table - all for their own personal glory and in the name of god. Country and intelligence had nothing to due with Nixon's and George Jr's wars.
Defined is also why containment is so effective at solving world problems. And why preemption is strongly based in extremist propaganda. Demonstrated is that one, declared a liberal by some, is more ruthless than the weak kneed Urbane Guerilla who thinks nothing about going to war at the drop of a feather. We need cannon fodder which is why we need Urbane Guerrilla types. But worry when these types get us into a war. Demonstrated by the number of above words, war is not something to enter without both good and deep seated reasoning since 120,000 people suddenly have no significant value.