War and Peace

This level of clarity is sadly lacking in most discourse. I just happened upon an article by Joel Stein that makes a related point.
(Thanks to DPRK Studies for the link, what follows is nobody's fault but my own.)
Armies are for killing. Since we're the good guys we do our best to make sure that the only ones killed are 'bad people' but it matters little to a dead man that he were killed by a very nice American bomber crew whose GPS coordinates were off by a second of arc rather than by a murderous terrorist.
Imagine if the State Department and USAID got the budget that DOD gets, if the Peace Corps was as well equipped as the Marine Corps is.

Trying to return to the topic which inspired this comment, Gunnery Sergeant Burghard is part of a system set up to kill people. That his particular duty is admirable is irrelevant, he isn't clearing explosives so that children can get to school, although I imagine what he does helps them, he is clearing explosives so that American armored vehicles can move about without hindrance. Similarly, the programmers, truck drivers, accountants and yes even the doctors are cogs in a great war machine (this is especially true in Burghard's branch, the Marines, since whatever else they do, every Marine is a rifleman. Or so I'm told) and they cannot separate themselves from its product. (In fairness, I think that a doctor's responsibility to provide care certainly outweighs the issues I raise).

This ought to be a major distinction between us and the terrorists. They believe in something (something evil) and they believe so strongly that they are willing to kill for it. We claim to believe in something (freedom, something wonderful) and yet we too are willing to kill for it. The president's people are right to call the philosophy of the terrorists an 'ideology of death', well then let us oppose it with an ideology of life. This 'War on Terror' is a wars of ideas and it cannot be fought with the enemy's weapons.

I confess, I'm not sure how policy would be affected by a broad adoption of the principles I hold. (After all, I actually advocate a harder line in dealing with NK) My recommendation for Al Qaida was that its members be tracked down and put on trial for mass murder and I think a judicial paradigm might serve as a framework for a world based on the supremacy of something other than the barrel of a gun. e.g. The idea of universal jurisdiction would allow Saddam or the leadership of NK to be put on trial anywhere in the world. However, arresting the truly evil and using diplomacy with the rest would not resolve every situation. In conclusion, if the goal is truly peace and freedom, the means must be consistent with those ends. It is better to accept death on the side of right than to survive immorally.