War is a horrible thing. Often times huge numbers of people are killed. Whole populations may be wiped out. The losing sides culture, economy and patriotism are often trashed by the victors, and their point of view is often lost to posterity. This is why it is important, in this day and age, to have good and just reasons for going to war. Wars should not be based on ideas, religion, irrational fears, or greed as they have in the past. It is also important to avoid some things that have only recently entered the lexicon of war, like civilian casualties and collateral damage. Although it is impossible to avoid them altogether, every effort must be made to avoid them. In the past the losing country, tribe, or nation-state was plundered, looted and burned to the ground. Today we must not lose sight of the objective, and do nothing other than what we have gone in to do.
Wars should be based on very real threats and reasons. They should only be a last resort and not a knee-jerk response to a problem or desire like they have in the past. All reasonable, peaceful alternatives to the war must be tried before a bloody conflict is initiated. A relatively recent example of a war that had little rational basis was the Mexican-American War of 1846. It was the first major conflict that was driven by "Manifest Destiny", the idea that America had the God-given right to invade most of western North America. Wars should not be fought because one side thinks it has a divine right to have the other sides land. America could have offered to buy the land from Mexico, if America had enough money to finance a war that cost the lives of 13,780 soldiers it could have just as easily sat down at the bargaining table. The Mexican-American was not the only unjustified war that this country has fought.
The Vietnam War was another war that the United States did not need to fight. Ideas should not decide issues of war and peace. Real threats and acts of aggression should decide military policy. The Vietnam War was fought to prevent the spread of Communism, an idea that does not even work in practice, but an idea that the American people had an irrational fear of. Wars should not be based on irrational fears or ideas, for example the American peoples great fear of (the soon to be deposed) Saddam Hussein. The American people have an irrational fear of him, because he is from the region of the world that we associate with suicide bombers and jihad. This fear has driven most Americans to be supportive of the overthrow of the tyrannical Mr. Hussein and his supporters. This is despite the Bush administrations diplomatic disaster and lack of one good, solid reason to turn the Middle East upside down.
Wars should not be based on religion in any way. Religion is subject to interpretation and can be very easily twisted to favor one side or the other. In the past, religion has been used as a legitimate reason to conduct wars that had much less acceptable motivations. An example of this was the Crusades, a war that was meant to get dangerous knights out of Europe. In many past conflicts, clergy on both sides have declared God to be on their side, claiming moral superiority. In addition, most world religions condemn violence; therefore making it next to impossible to find a solid and widely accepted interpretation that supports violence.
War is not a nice, or clean operation in any way, it is very messy and always hurts the innocent in some way. We should, however, try to minimize this inevitable collateral damage as much as possible. It is very important to have good and just reasons for going to war. Wars should not be based on ideas, greed, irrational fears, or religion as they have in the past. Wars should have set objectives that the conflict is meant to achieve. All reasonable efforts to obtain those objectives peacefully must be tried before the war starts. War is a dangerous thing; it must be based on real reasons and threats, and only used as a last resort.
