I still hold that most other countries would have handled the situation worse. Japan's civilian losses, even though horrendous, are similar to France's, and low compared to others such as China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland or Russia.

That does not make a wrong right, but you can classify degrees of wrongness. And to choose a lesser wrong when all your choices are limited.

That is a classic conundrum. What is worse, to act or to refrain from action? Now, looking at Rwanda and Bosnia, what is the right answer?

Progress usually arises from competition. And wars are an extreme form of competition. Indeed, the European continual wars of the XVI-XVIII centuries are behind the current Western capitalist dominance of the world. And the armies show they/we (as democratic supporters of our governments) intend to stay at the top. The "white man burden" has become the "rich man burden".

As in many other things, armies are a bad solution, but the best we have found so far. 200.000 dutch people were killed in the Second World War. Close to a million people have died in Congo in the aftermath of the Rwandan civil war. Being peaceful and defenceless is not enough.

However I believe that if you build an army, pay for it, you either have to use it or disband it. I would use it, as the UN has a big shortage of peacekeeping forces, as most countries actually use their troops as mercenaries in the UN service, as a source of cash.

Also, comparing countries with similar per capita income and less military investment, the GDP fraction dedicated to Education or medical services is similar. Maybe the US does not get as much bang for their buck, or they have higher priorities, but their health expense is the highest of the world, on all levels, and usually doubling or tripling other advanced countries. So in the US, health is the higher priority, followed by defence, and then Education, but Education expense means a similar value to most of the western countries (around 3.5% of GDP).

José

[This message was edited by JRE on March 03, 2004 at 03:01 PM.]

One final comment about Viet-Nam. The decision to target the civilian population was a political decision, not a military one. And you should never forget it was not the USA against Viet-Nam, it was the USA intervening in a civil war. And civil wars are always bloody. That the civil war was a fault of European colonialism and communists "exporting" the Revolution means little to the dead.

José

"Bellham, where are you?"

Oops, I stopped following this thread back on the first page when it was spiralling out of coherence, or at least away from the question of whether ecological debates warranted using the term 'global terrorism.'

It appears this thread has developed another life of it's own, who knew? {tracking back to read it now...}

Bellham

"he´s proposing that violence have been the function of our reaction to our own mortality, this is violence pure and simple in phenomenological sense"

K, still waiting for that whole coherence thing...

"Groups of humans left alone do in fact leave nice and relatively peaceful lives"

Except for the disturbing tendency of a group of humans to split up into multiple groups, who then proceed to make each other miserable.

"How large a group is too large, I wonder."

Athropological studies suggest that groups in the 200-400 range have a probability of splitting into two or more groups that rises as the population size rises, and this is largely independent of availability of resources. They may be a factor, but political/family/clan stresses tend to be enough to pull larger groups apart, all on their own. Larger scale social organizations generally become possible only when one subgroup becomes powerful enough to prevent the rest of the group from splitting off from the main group.

"Harder work, more danger" Now, if Kradlum only mentioned combat pay for inner city teachers, he might have ya on that whole teacher/soldier scenario.

"Either you are deliberately trolling or I have seriously overestimated your intelligence."

Well, I'll admit the possibility that you seriously overestimated someone's intelligence, I'm just not convinced it's Splitcoil's (But coming late to this thread, I respect your right to decide that mine is the one having been overestimated).

"over recent years the US seems to be being run by the military-industrial complex to the detriment of education and health"

Well, technically, pretty much for our entire history there's a sort of truth there, if you consider that the military was considered one of the principle responsibilities of federal government, and only recently have we decided education and health care were the job of government, especially the federal government.

"The US currently has a debt of $3trillion"

I thought it was seven....

"I prefer blank notebooks and blank paper. I hate lines!"

quote:

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If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.

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- Juan Ramon Jiminez

"but you can classify degrees of wrongness. And to choose a lesser wrong when all your choices are limited."

One of the single most-overlooked truths in the world, an oversight committed predominantly by otherwise praisworthy idealists.

K, my job here is done, Splitcoil, this'll teach you to invite me into a thread.

Bellham

quote:

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Originally posted by JRE:
Maybe the US does not get as much bang for their buck, or they have higher priorities, but their health expense is the highest of the world, on all levels, and usually doubling or tripling other advanced countries. So in the US, health is the higher priority, followed by defence, and then Education, but Education expense means a similar value to most of the western countries (around 3.5% of GDP).

José

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The bang for the buck is the big problem for American healthcare. As you say, the US puts twice as much proportionately of its GDP into healthcare than the UK does, but, by all WHO measurements, it provides half as good a service. This is because in the US healthcare is a for-profit industry, while in most of europe (although each european country has a different model of healthcare and of financing healthcare) it is on a not-for-profit basis.

The US model has to provide profits for the insurers to pay their shareholders, it has to provide profit for its hospitals. This leads to money that is seen to be spent on healthcare actually being spent on shareholder dividends. It also leads to inappropriate spending of healthcare funds, as hospitals compete for patients by having the latest technology, the fanciest grounds and valet parking. American hospitals may be the best equipped in the world, but at the cost of basic, general healthcare, like infant inocculation, pre and post natal care etc for the poorest people.

It has lead to a growing underclass of the population who do not qualify for medicaid, but have no health insurance.

It also leads to horrendous unnecessary suffering - A friend of my wife's in California worked for the same company for 30 years, they paid his health insurance, everything was rosie. He discovered he had a crumbling spine at about the same time the company went bust. He now had no health insurance and a pre-existing condition that would not be covered by any insurance that he could afford. Instead of having the operations needed to fix his spine, he's looking at the rest of his life in a wheel chair.

quote:

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Originally posted by JohnBellham:
"Bellham, where are you?"

Oops, I stopped following this thread back on the first page when it was spiralling out of coherence, or at least away from the question of whether ecological debates warranted using the term 'global terrorism.'

It appears this thread has developed another life of it's own, who knew? {tracking back to read it now...}



.Bellham

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The word you are looking after is nocebo effect

quote:

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Originally posted by JRE:
One final comment about Viet-Nam. The decision to target the civilian population was a political decision, not a military one. And you should never forget it was not the USA against Viet-Nam, it was the USA intervening in a civil war. And civil wars are always bloody. That the civil war was a fault of European colonialism and communists "exporting" the Revolution means little to the dead.

José

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Yeah and the decision to target Iraq was also political. The military are handy tool for politicians.

And no it was not "internal defence" against inner insurgency, that´s just lunicruise. When WASHINGTONS little puppet regim fell they sent an expidition force to clear the democratic opposition away and "protect" their interests in southvietnam.


the indigenous NLF forces had essentially won the war in South Vietnam. Therefore the United States shifted to a larger war, attacking North Vietnam directly. In this larger war, it subjected South Vietnam to intense bombardment and send an occupying army there to destroy the NLF forces. The US government hoped to force the DRV to "make the Viet Cong desist." Instead, it drew the DRV into the war directly, as, in fact, had been anticipated during the planning (cf. William Bundy, November, 1964, III, p. 616