CYVIN

I think everyone is pretty much in agreement that the reason the US went to war with Iraq turned out to not be valid.  That brings up a good question, though.  What do you think is a good or justifiable reason to go to war?

a fine point.  I think I hit my head harder than I realize 

I don't think you'll find anyone that disagrees that that should be humanity's goal, but the reality is that we do have expansionist countries (china, japan), psycho dictators (hitler, hussein, castro, mao, etc), and extreme fundamentalist governments (taliban, etc), and as you say, we still do have racism.

The utopian view of society requires that most people cooperate, and in turn, ignore their core nature and instincts, which, in my opinion, is not likely to happen.

I'm not saying that it absolutely can't be done, but the Nelson Mandela's of the world rarely get to a position of power in countries because they aren't shady enough to get elected or to steal power.

100 and even as recent as 60 year ago, it was perfectly acceptable to kill millions of people in a war, irrespective of whether they were civilians, military, babies, etc, etc.  Today, nearly any civilian casualties are unacceptable.  That is why I think that nuclear bombs are pretty much relegated to a deterrent, never to be used again.  "Civilized" governments MUST only do the MINIMUM amount of damage in a war these days, because people in the far off places we used to bomb the shit out of are now just like us.  We know them, we see them on TV crying when someone gets killed, we work with them.  The world is much smaller, but that has meant that we must be much more precise in our wars going forward.  It would have been so much easier and less costly, in terms of US soldier's lives, to simply bomb the crap out of Iraq like we did to Germany or Japan - hell, even the casualties in first gulf war would have been unacceptable now.

100 and even as recent as 60 year ago, it was perfectly acceptable to kill millions of people in a war, irrespective of whether they were civilians, military, babies, etc, etc.  Today, nearly any civilian casualties are unacceptable.  That is why I think that nuclear bombs are pretty much relegated to a deterrent, never to be used again.  "Civilized" governments MUST only do the MINIMUM amount of damage in a war these days, because people in the far off places we used to bomb the shit out of are now just like us.  We know them, we see them on TV crying when someone gets killed, we work with them.  The world is much smaller, but that has meant that we must be much more precise in our wars going forward.  It would have been so much easier and less costly, in terms of US soldier's lives, to simply bomb the crap out of Iraq like we did to Germany or Japan - hell, even the casualties in first gulf war would have been unacceptable now.

You make an excellent point there, Jerry!
Perhaps we need to televise soldiers being killed in battle - no 2-21 type of thing! Perhaps when we see what happens when we send our boys off to war, we will think twice about allowing it!
Being presented with flags & medals is noble - being presented with body parts would be reality!