Poll: Americans Oppose Iraq Troop Surge

Washington - Seventy percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, according to a new poll that provides a devastatingly blunt response to President Bush's plan to bolster military forces there.

All sides in the Iraq debate are keenly aware of mounting public dissatisfaction with the situation: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday it's one thing on which all Americans - including administration officials - are united.

Yet the Associated Press-Ipsos poll found widespread disagreement with the Bush administration over its proposed solution, and growing skepticism that the United States made the right decision in going to war in the first place.

Just as 70 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops to Iraq, a like number don't think such an increase would help stabilize the situation there, the poll suggested. When asked to name the most important problem facing the U.S., 38 percent of those polled volunteered war, up significantly from 24 percent three months ago.


Here's a brief look at the Ethics of war I found interesting at Wikipedia
on the Philosophy of War page:

Ethical categories

Another possible system for categorizing different schools of thought on war can be found in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (see external links, below), based on ethics. The SEP describes three major divisions in the ethics of war: the Realist, the Pacifist, and the Just War Theory. In a nutshell:

* Realists will typically hold that systems of morals and ethics which guide individuals within societies cannot realistically be applied to societies as a whole to govern the way they, qua societies, interact with other societies. Hence, a state's purposes in war is simply to preserve its national interest. This kind of thinking is similar to Machiavelli's philosophy, and Thucydides and Hobbes may also fall under this category.

* Pacifists, however, maintain that a moral evaluation of war is possible, and that war is always found to be immoral. Gandhi and Tolstoy were both famous advocates of pacifistic nonviolent resistance methods instead of war.

* Just War Theory, along with pacifism, holds that morals do apply to war. However, unlike pacifism, according to Just War Theory it is possible for a war to be morally justified. The concept of a morally justified war underlies much of the concept International Law, such as the Geneva Conventions. Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine, Aquinas, and Hugo Grotius are among the philosophers who have espoused some form of a just war philosophy.

I'm definitely a pacifist. For me war is always immoral, that is for me. With my belief in a form of reincarnation and other spiritual beliefs, including a belief that we are more than our bodies allows me not to make too strong a judgement condemning others who fight and kill and are killed, etc. If they did so on their own dime that would suite me better. But to draw the rest of their society into it, especially financially, I oppose.

Martin Luther King said, "I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become reality. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."


So may it be as it already IS in reality, in the EE, in you dear one and in me.


me in the "lovE will havE the final word."