America the Beautiful, by Dr. Ben Carson, M.D. : on War & Peace
Ben Carson:
No right to assume that our way was right for 1960s Vietnam
Though there were always protestors to our wars, few conflicts were considered immoral until the Vietnam War. Many said that stopping communism's spread was a noble goal and fully justified our involvement in this war, but others argued with some
validity that we had no right to assume that our way of governing was superior to communism.During that war in the jungles of Vietnam, we burned villages with napalm and destroyed the lives of many innocent villagers who had nothing to do with the
political struggle. The Vietcong forces had the tremendous advantage of knowing both the terrain and the people, which eventually afforded them the victory in the war. Since the Vietnam conflict ended poorly, our nation experienced a period of shame and
humiliation for which the military was blamed, and many of the returning veterans were treated with disrespect. The Vietnam Was dampened America's enthusiasm for war, and we experienced one of the longest periods of peace in our nation's history.
Source: America the Beautiful, by Ben Carson, p.103
Jan 24, 2012
Ben Carson:
Morality of war in Iraq was highly debatable
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the enthusiasm for military intervention was tremendous. A war with well-defined & widely accepted goals that ends in victory will virtually always be seen as virtuous. The subsequent war with Iraq years later was much
more controversial, especially after WMDs were not found. Whether the war in Iraq was moral or not is highly debatable. If you think stopping a brutal dictator from continuing to kill hundreds of thousands of his own people is worthwhile, then you are
more likely to believe that we acted in a morally justifiable manner. If you are more concerned about the over 4,000 American lives that were lost and the hundreds of billions of dollars that were added to our national debt to be passed along to our
children, then you're more likely to feel that our efforts were immoral.The point here is that it is very difficult to determine our nation's morality based on its military conflicts. Then too one can legitimately ask the question, is any war moral?
Source: America the Beautiful, by Ben Carson, p.104
Jan 24, 2012
Ben Carson:
Better response than post-9-11 invasions: oil independence
After the 9/11 crisis almost everyone united behind President George W. Bush for a reason. Whether America's ensuing steps into war in Afghanistan and Iraq will be seen as positive remains to be seen, but I can't help thinking there may have been a
better way to react that would not have cost us so many lives and financial capital. I believe that if the president had seized the moment and declared that we would become petroleum independent within the next 10 years as part of our efforts to strip
terrorism of its resources, that business, industry, academia, & everyone else would have been foursquare behind him, and we would have been much further ahead in the fight against terrorism than we are today.Oil prices would have fallen dramatically
in an attempt to soften our resolve, but good leadership would hopefully have recognized and compensated for such a ploy. The point, of course, is that in some cases, clever tactics can be employed outside of military action to respond to hostile actions
Source: America the Beautiful, by Ben Carson, p.134
Jan 24, 2012
Ben Carson:
Tyranny follows if we disarm nukes & madmen get them
I realize that some feel that the United States and other world powers with nuclear weapons have no right to declare that others cannot have them.
On the surface this seems like a fair argument, but can you imagine how many deaths would occur if everyone were given a handgun? Perhaps it would be FAIR to give everyone a handgun, but it certainly would not be WISE.
Although I applaud efforts toward nuclear disarmament, I also realize that if no one had nuclear weapons and one of the madmen of the world acquired them, worldwide tyranny would quickly follow.
Therefore, we must be careful in pursuing our goals of an idyllic world.
Source: America the Beautiful, by Ben Carson, p.135
Jan 24, 2012
Page last updated: Dec 12, 2018