Peaceful sentiments are praiseworthy, but only platitudes. Those who wish for peace on the terms you've described do not appreciate the impossibility of their primary assumption, which is that everyone in the world must agree to be peaceful in order for their form of peace to hold. This ideology does not account for dissenters. This is a fatal flaw in their argument.

I wonder if you would ask your mother-in-law how she feels we must handle dissenters. If she feels all dissent can be overcome by positive thinking, I wonder if she could provide evidence, over the hundreds (or even thousands) of years Buddhism has existed, of documented successes in this type of endeavor.

We discussed this. As a recent convert she has the exuberance of fresh faith and seems to believe that negativity can be caught up in the great wave and swept along toward peace and love. Her response - and that of Buddhists throughout history - to individuals who don't go along with the program is that it doesn't really matter anyway since physical existence is illusion and the Great Vibe is what really counts more than a few hundred, thousand or million deaths here and there.

Leave your mother in law alone and pick on a real anti-war activist. There are certainly plenty of "peace and love" pacifists in the movement, but they're not the majority. The majority are like me--happy to support a war when it's necessary or "just," but not convinced this one is. People say, "well, then, you lefty bleepideebleep, what is a just war, you never seem to support ours." So, as a public service to all you warmongering windbags, I offer the following partial list:

The U.S. intervention in WWII, since it saved the world from Nazism. (And don't even start with that "Saddam is just as dangerous as Hitler because he has a vial of anthrax hidden in his palace" baloney; that dog won't hunt.)

The Cuban intervention in Angola in the 1970s because it led to decisive defeats for the South African military, helping the U.S. to conclude that apartheid was not worth defending.

The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978?9?, since it liquidated the Khymer Rouge terror; which terror, by the way, was an indirect consequence of the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. Yes, you heard that right. Handle it.

The Sandinista defense against the U.S. contra invasion.

People also say, "Well, you lefty bleepideebleep, will you ever add a U.S. war besides WWII to your list?" And the answer is, there's a chance we might, and we don't want you to miss out. So stay by your computer, and I'll e-mail you as soon as one comes along. It'll be any day now. I promise.

Here's a question I just thought of:

From a list of past wars that you now deem "just" (and I'll grant that their might be such a thing, I guess, though I'm hard pressed to think of war as anything but "horrid"), can you come up with any pattern that might be used to predict a just war? I ask because it seems like your reasons for picking a war here or there had mainly to do with the results. Since results can't be known ahead of time, that does make it difficult to know how to respond to a given threat, right?

I certainly don't intend to defend US foreign policy - I'd be much happier with a live-and-let-live policy with no sanctions and so on. But I'm struggling to come up with a common pattern among the military actions you mention.

It's an honest question, by the way, and I'm curious about a possible answer from anyone. Preferably not phrased in the form of "Well, it has to be NOT like THIS one, which is ..."