War Is Sometimes Necessary

War is Sometimes Necessary

The purpose of this essay is to show that war is sometimes necessary to resolve conflicts. I am going to show this by analyzing Eli Weisel’s claim that war is sometimes necessary when a group is being oppressed. I will then discuss Wesley K. Clark and his belief that war is sometimes a necessary threat to engage in diplomacy. I will conclude this essay by addressing Mohandas K. Gandhi’s claim that nonviolence is always the way to resolve conflicts, and to live by the universal law of love. I will show that Gandhi does not address the reasons why war is sometimes necessary.
War is necessary when a dictator is in power and there is a concern for other people’s welfare, “As a great power, America has always seemed concerned with other people’s welfare, especially in Europe. Twice in the 20th century it saved the “old World” from dictatorship and tyranny” (Wiesel 836). Saddam Hussein, former president of Iraq, instituted a brutal dictatorship and directed intensive campaigns against minorities within Iraq, particularly the Kurds. Saddam Hussein was responsible for murdering 148 men and torturing women and children in Dujail. The Iraq war, a U.S. led invasion in 2003, drove him from power. Without this war, he may not have been captured, and would have continued to torture many.
Each war has a purpose, but not all of them are noble. One purpose is to manage the affairs of a country well, “Above all else, we Americans must understand that the goal of war is simply a tool of statecraft, one that must work in tandem with diplomacy, economic suasion, intelligence, and other instruments of the U.S. power” (Clark 848). The first phase of the Afghanistan war started when the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom which removed Al-Qaeda’s safe haven and their use of Afghan territory as a base of operations for terrorist activities. We are still in Afghanistan working to help them manage their country well. The Civil...