[Rhodes22-list] reply to Dave Woten about subject of war

[Hank]

Dave,

Technically, the Korean war has never ended.  A cease-fire was declared on
July 27, 1953 but there has never been a treaty, surrender or annihilation
as you put it.

Hank

On 8/8/07, DCLewis1 at aol.com <DCLewis1 at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
> Ed,
>
> You're right about the subject line, I apologize.
>
> As to wars being long - as I recall there was a 100 years war in  medieval
> Europe, so wars can indeed go on a long time, but to my knowledge
> all  wars have
> ended in treaties, surrender, or annihilation.  I can't  think of a single
> real war that's just gone on forever or one that has  magically,
> mystically,
> just petered out without the other side  surrendering, being annihilated,
> or
> accommodating the winning side via a  treaty of some sort - for example
> Wikipedia
> tells me the 30 years war ended  with the Treaty of Munster, there was a
> demarcated end.  I'd welcome an  example of a real war that has gone on
> forever, or
> that magically  dissapated.
>
> As to the definitions of war you cited, again you are correct, but map the
> correct definitions you cited
> "War is a condition of belligerency to be maintained by
> physical  force."   "
> A contest
> between states, carried on by force, whether  for defense, for revenging
> insults and redressing wrongs, or for any other  purpose; declared and
> open
> hostilities."
> into "the war on cancer", "the  war on poverty", "the war on drugs", it's
> a
> metaphorical stretch - and that's my  point.  What belligerency have we
> maintained by physical force in "the war  on cancer" - none.   Exactly
> what is the
> geo-political state we are  contesting against with physical force in our
> war on
> poverty - none. We can  take poetic license and say the "state" is
> poverty,a
> condition of society, but  clearly that's a metaphoric extension of what
> your
> definitions  were describing.  Which geopolitical state have we asserted
> "a
> condition of belligerency maintained by physical force" against in our war
> on
> drugs - none (maybe Panama, but the war on drugs goes far beyond  Panama).
> It's politically attractive to use the term "war" in dealing  with cancer,
> poverty, drugs, or a lot of other things, but none of those  "issues
> d'jour" are
> really wars, they're are areas of focused attention and  resources, not
> wars.
>
> There's a good side and bad side to declaring topics d'jour to
> be  wars.  The
> good side is it gets people excited and focused - for a  time.  A
> politician
> can get a lot of good press by declaring war on some  topic or behavior.
> The
> bad side is that most or many of the issues are not  amenable to any sort
> of
> "victory", they are problems that have been with mankind  forever, and
> will
> likely always be with us in one form or another.  Because  we can't
> declare
> victory, after decades with no or little progress, people get  discouraged
> and give
> up the cause for lost - drugs are an example.    My point is, we haven't
> lost
> and we can never win,  these are long  term problems of mankind that have
> been
> with us forever, not wars, and we  just have to keep working on them -
> probably forever.
>
> Regarding drugs: If I understand correctly, the claim is that if we just
> legalized drugs the problem would go away.  I'm asserting the
> problem(s)  would
> just be different.  I think that if we legalized "hard drugs" (i.e.  drugs
> that
> are seriously addictive and seriously debilitating) the moral,  social,
> and
> economic costs to society created by a class of literally tens  of
> millions of
> addicts would dwarf our present problems by orders of  magnitude.  If
> drugs
> were legal, Brad's son would not be on the high seas  trying to interdict,
> he
> would be riding an ambulance stuffing body bags.  I  think that
> criminalization
> of drug use actually works to disincentivize a lot of  people that would
> otherwise try addicting drugs, and the moral, social and  economic costs
> associated
> with tens of millions of addicts is so extraordinarily  high that any
> disincentive is a good and useful thing.
>
> JMO
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> ************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL
> at
> http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
> __________________________________________________
> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list