Tony raised this interesting question in his blog post.
This seems like something the community can discuss and use to produce some insights.
Pick a war, any war.
State whether you think it was avoidable or unavoidable.
What leads you to think about that war in that way?
Are there other wars about which you think the opposite?
What leads you to think differently about these different wars?
Even where we disagree, our answers to the last question should help shed some light on why we disagree. Maybe some of the answers will even point to some ways we can better understand our differences about the Iraq War -- miracles sometimes happen!
Jim,
As I stated in another section, some wars are unavoidable. Even when the 'think tank' gathers togehter to come up with a way to avoid war, the discussion ofter reverts to 'who' is right rather than 'what' is right. We begin to think with emotion vs logic and a 'war' is begun within the very group designed to come up with a 'better way' to 'fix this war'.
Stormy