Guest Just a Friend, think a little bit. think of 1938 Munich, when the England and France who had an alliance with Czechoslovakia (ie if any country is attacked the others will come to their defence.)

at Munich, England and France signed away Czechoslovakia to the Germans, (the Czechs werent even present) Neville Chamberlain the Prime Minister came back saying we have 'Peace in Our Time' why should we go to war over some country and people we know little about. (I note that many Czech and Polish pilots later fought in the Battle of Britain)

Churchill told Chamberlain he wanted peace with honour but instead received war and dishonour. ALl the sit-ins and boycotts in the world would have done nothing against Hitler. The Germans were a ruthless bunch of gangsters who wouldnt have been stopped except by war. In fact after the war the Germans said they expected an Allied reaction after re-occupation of the Rhineland, and after the occupation of Sudeten land in Czechoslovakia (which by the way was never part of German territory, and was heavily fortified with formidable gun installations - Czechoslovakia was a well armed industrialized nation). each time the Germans thought that maybe there will be a reaction and Hitler might be overthrown. But in fact each time they were emboldened by the opportunity.

I dont think there are many people who dont want peace but there are times (as in wwII) when there is no alternative to war. As Stan Rogers sang in Harris and the Mare when his wife is struck down by a drunken madman, 'I was a conshie in the war but I had to see his blood to be a man'.

what is there to learn from wwII, certainly that leaving Europe in a mess after the First war led to a lot of instability -- for those that want to talk about root causes -- on the other hand the root causes of the holocaust had nothing to do with the west. (this I think parallels todays discussions of those seeking root causes of terrorism -- ie. while there are legitimate beefs from the Islamic world, poverty, anti-globalism, the palestinian problem, many of those causes have their origins there (and have nothing to do with the west) ie. not all dictatorships were installed and maintained by western powers - as in Pakistan which was a freely elected govt. later overthrown by the military. its like saying the holocaust was a direct result of Versailles, it wasnt.

its pointless to talk about anti-war and peace, sometimes you have to defend yourself, but more important is that there is a mechanism, a new Marshall plan, if you will, to stabilize that region afterwards perhaps under the auspices of the UN, so that an opportunity for a long term period of peace and stability is not missed (as it was in the early 90's after the Russians pulled out.)

as well as look at long term political goals, ie. forgive more 3rd world debts, try to establish checks and balances on trends in globalism ie. protection of environmental and labour rights.