🚀 go-pugleaf

"Young J. Putt" <j.putt@verizon.net> wrote:

>
><hchickpea@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:450927e0.26751407@news.earthlink.net...
>> bearclaw@cruller.invalid wrote:
>>
>> >I _must_ be dense, right? What was Condi talking about?
>> >
>> >Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared critics of the Iraq war to
>> >Northerners who sought peace with the South during the Civil War.
>> >"There were people who thought the Declaration of Independence was a
>> >mistake," she said.
>>
>
>> You might read more history.
>
>Certainly Condi is trying discredit the anti-war crowd by comparing them to
>those with such "obviously" ridiculous views. 

Of course.

>I think an interesting thing
>to consider is whether, at the time, those positions were really so
>unreasonable. Would it have been necessarily so wrong to oppose violent
>rebellion against the English government during the revolutionary period?

In a word, yes.  The reasons are too many and too deep to repeat here.
Suffice to say, the colonies were being treated like a bastard
stepchild.  In a later time, with far greater numbers and a weaker
opponent, Gandhi was able to forment a non-violent rebellion, but the
time was not yet ripe for such niceties.

> In
>the case of the Civil War, was it ridiculous to suggest that the Southern
>states be allowed to form their own union, especially considering the
>incredible cost in human life and property caused by the conflict?

That question *if you take slavery out of the mix* is more nebulous.
One never goes into a war knowing the costs beforehand.  Before asking
"was it worth it?", another question should be asked.  Would an
independent nation in the south have worked?  I think not.  The south
was inherently weak.  It had no industry to speak of, no ability to
make large amounts of arms at a moments notice, and an economy based
almost completely on cotton, the production of which was heading to
India.  That shift alone would have turned it into a country of
poverty.  Perhaps it would have utilized the coal and iron deposits
around Birmingham to form industry, with the help of English
engineers, but the thrust of the country was agrarian.

Whatever the costs of the civil war, the alternatives would have been
far worse.  The successful secession would have quickly opened the
door for the Balkanization of the other states, and the weakening of
the defensive power of the nation, leading to more battles between
states and countries.  Mexico would have surely taken Texas and the
west, at considerable loss of life, the northern states would have had
constant skirmishes over disputed land, Napoleon might have found
Louisiana more enticing than Egypt, and more importantly, the outcome
of WWII would have been vastly different.

Would the average Joe of the time have any inkling of this?  No.
Would the short term outcome have been better?  Probably not.  

>Historically, isn't the "rightness" or "wrongness" of the two sides of a
>conflict always determined, after the fact, by the victor?

History (in the short term) is written by the victor, and with victory
belong the spoils, but the morality of a conflict exists independently
of the winning or losing, as any native american will attest.