jonathon delacour spent a long time reaffirming existentialism: "even if I am not responsible for the state's decision to go to war, I am obliged to act with sincerity of purpose (authentically)?whether I choose to support the war or to oppose it?and to accept responsibility for both my actions and my failure to act." i'm not sure i like how he got there (coming awefully close to claiming ignorant support of an unjust cause is good), but i very much agree with his conclusion, and i'd like to restate it:
the point i got here is that one's ignorance of the wrongfulness of a cause becomes less plausible in times such as war. when surrounded by advocates of both or either position, it becomes nearly impossible to honestly claim that nothing said in favor or against a war has struck one as true or void of truth. you can say looking back that you didn't know what the war was really about, but you can't plausibly say that you didn't know what the state said it was about, or that you didn't know if you believed it. that is, you knew what it was about to you. in war, you make decisions. we can not universally judge the validity of those decisions, given the variety of their circumstances, but we can judge the lie of claiming the decisions were never made. and this lie, i believe, we can call cowardice.
by the way, i don't support bush's war, as the man seems to me not above sacrificing innocent americans and iraqis for his own financial gain. i don't know his motives; i just know i don't trust him.