> I have promised myself never to build weapons unless the United States is attacked
Attacked by whom and for what purpose and for what ends? How would you moderate your response to an attack based on the circumstances? How do you even know the attack was real or that it had the intent that was reported by the media[1]?
The US is a big country, and while its mainland has never suffered any significant attack by a nation-state in de-jure war, the US is "attacked" in some way or another quite regularly - the immediate example is 9/11 of course, but what about economic and social attacks (e.g. Russia social-media manipulation, or the PRC's attempts to replace US influence abroad)?
I assume the US is your home - but from my perspective (as a non-American) that seems a tad chauvinistic: do I detect you implying that the US worth defending but not other democracies? Or 1,001 other points one could make along similar lines.
I appreciate that one's moral philosophy and position on the extent of the right to self-defence (from the person, to the home, to the town, to the nation) is a very complicated and subjective topic, so to be clear: I don't mean to attack your stated position at all (I'm sure you have a well-reasoned position), but it's a bad idea to try to succinctly summarize one's opinion on this matter in particular on the Internet.
[1] Thinking of 9/11 again: I'd wager the vast majority of Americans would repeat the "they hate us for our freedom" line without thinking too much about how much of a gross-oversimplification that line was when there were in-fact many reasons for the plot (e.g. https://mershoncenter.osu.edu/news/what-caused-911-and-conse... ). I guess if anything good came out of 9/11 it's that Islamofascist militants realised any political message they want to make would be completely distorted or misrepresented in the American media landscape - even if some of their goals were still achieved (e.g. getting the US stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East).
Although I was not thinking about conspiracy theories like 9/11 or Perl Harbor, fundamentally I am quite curious to find why is more believable for average American that Putin can rig US election than that Trump can attack some oversea country with excuse of them having chemical weapons.
I remember that Iraq was attacked with strong claims from intelligence agency that they have weapons of mass destruction (another president), America destroyed Iraq and what remained from that destroyed economy was seed of ISIS. Later on, when they have not found any evidence of weapons official admired that they spiced the info. Because hey oil was interest to protect. Despite biggest protest in history of the World, and despite not having UN approval America attacked Iraq.
Also, I am curious to find out, what makes someone think that it is ok to drop a bomb that will level entire city and kill thousands innocent people, basically committing genocide. Allays were portrayed as good in WW2 but are we?
First bombed was dropped to Hiroshima 70,000 people vaporized instantly, later on 140,000 would die. Now I guess they had some kind report, but they did not stopped there, they dropped another one to Nagasaki.
So let say they did not know about first one, but second one was pure genocide, targets were civilians.
Now I ask among those ~300,000 was there any innocent child?
My point is what ever way you feel it is justifiable it is not, history is written by the winners, and our "morality" tends to bend accordingly.
As we progress in future, if we do not find mechanisms to identify human psychopathic tendencies we are doomed, as each fraction of advancement would just mean higher risk and probability of mutual destruction. Technology is just a multiplier of all our abilities and who we are. Although we tend to think we are better than our savage ancestors, history has proven number of times - that we are not.
Attacked by whom and for what purpose and for what ends? How would you moderate your response to an attack based on the circumstances? How do you even know the attack was real or that it had the intent that was reported by the media[1]?
The US is a big country, and while its mainland has never suffered any significant attack by a nation-state in de-jure war, the US is "attacked" in some way or another quite regularly - the immediate example is 9/11 of course, but what about economic and social attacks (e.g. Russia social-media manipulation, or the PRC's attempts to replace US influence abroad)?
I assume the US is your home - but from my perspective (as a non-American) that seems a tad chauvinistic: do I detect you implying that the US worth defending but not other democracies? Or 1,001 other points one could make along similar lines.
I appreciate that one's moral philosophy and position on the extent of the right to self-defence (from the person, to the home, to the town, to the nation) is a very complicated and subjective topic, so to be clear: I don't mean to attack your stated position at all (I'm sure you have a well-reasoned position), but it's a bad idea to try to succinctly summarize one's opinion on this matter in particular on the Internet.
[1] Thinking of 9/11 again: I'd wager the vast majority of Americans would repeat the "they hate us for our freedom" line without thinking too much about how much of a gross-oversimplification that line was when there were in-fact many reasons for the plot (e.g. https://mershoncenter.osu.edu/news/what-caused-911-and-conse... ). I guess if anything good came out of 9/11 it's that Islamofascist militants realised any political message they want to make would be completely distorted or misrepresented in the American media landscape - even if some of their goals were still achieved (e.g. getting the US stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East).