[kahljorn]

I typed a response to this thread last night and my computer updated in the middle of it and rebooted ;/

Your just looking to defend yourself and your loved ones. But again what about war? You go into that knowing you will be killing people and its a bit different than self defense.

Okay well I have a few responses to this, the first thing I will say is that, even in war and self-defense, killing people is wrong.
Also, not everybody in the military signs up to "Kill people." A lot of people join so they can get a college education or be noble. The war is secondary to that, and a lot of them don't want to be in a situation which they are forced to participate in In the past, a lot of wars had draftees, so the people really didn't want to be there.
Which brings me to my next point: one of the key justifications I've heard for war, especially concerning the difference between a soldier and an assassin, is that soldiers aren't really supposed to be going somewhere to kill people. War could be said to be the perpetual placing of trained killers into situations in which they will have to defend themselves in order to achieve an objective, for the sake of themselves and loved ones.
The purpose of war is never to kill people. The intent of war is generally to capture stuff and make it so that the enemy can't attack you. This can be achieved in multiple ways, not just by killing people. Incapacitating a person, demoralizing the enemy etc. are all alternatives to the actual killing of people. And, interestingly, in self-defense, (imprisonment as far as I am saying) and also war, killing somebody after they have been incapacitated or are unable to fight back is a crime (or a war crime).

Basically, isn't war more about defending yourself, your loved ones and your country than about killing folks? And aren't wars seemingly oriented around killin folk generally considered abhorrent? Holocaust?

I might also say that soldiers have relinquished themselves to a different form of justice, but I don't really want to go there right now

I intend to never have to deal with the attacker again.

By incapacitating them safely within the confines a prison, I hope. Because otherwise you sir are a murderer or, at best, a manslaughterer.

In a way, the death penalty is self defense.

So is incapacitating them, or imprisoning them.

If you can justify it then it's right, right?

No. The act of killing (with the intent to do so) can never be right. For example, in self-defense, the act of self-defense is right, the idea of being passive and letting somebody else kill you is not right (if its wrong for you to kill them, its wrong for them to kill you); Regardless of this, it is still wrong to kill that person if you acted with the intent to do so.

If you try hard enough, you can justify almost anything. Most wars can and have been justified, does that make them all right? What counts as a "justification," exactly, anyway? Without blanket, moral statements its difficult to have any standard by which to "justify" things.

Is going to war for terrorists i mean for oil i mean to spread democracy in iraq and to liberate the gentle folk dwelling therein from a cruel and heartless dictator justified or unjustified? And what is it that makes it justified or unjustified?
It's not like hitler didn't have justification for what he was doing, either.

the vast percentage of wars are un-justified.

According to what? Maybe these wars were just spearheaded by persons who followed their own morals over the law.