| HN Mirror

True, as I said it's a very complex problem. However, in complex societies the lowest common denominator applies (to most anyway).

You may not have the chance to run away as you'll be forced to stay, like it or not. We saw that played out many times in WWI, WWII and in Vietnam where conscription was rife and the rules of the draft were essentially inviolate and not negotiable.

I know from personal experience, I opposed the Vietnam and was drafted anyway much to my chagrin (I won't bore you with details as they're not relavant here).

However, the Vietnam War was not one of those conflicts to which I was referring above. This is why there was so much opposition to it. Simply, it was hubris and false logic on the part of those governments involved and that's only a tiny fraction of the story.

Where a war is not 'legitimate' (as I've defined above), I verily believe one has a moral duty to oppose it at every opportunity. However, that's much easier said than done. One should never lose sight of the fact that armies have been recruiting for millennia and they know evey trick in the book. Feigning illness, etc.in an attempt to escape is often extremely difficult.

There's always the conscientious objetion route but that too can be an unusually difficult path.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I believe there is an extreme case where one has no other option other than to fight, so I couldn't honestly argue conscientious objector case (perhaps I'm just a bad lier).

In the scenario where there's no other option, escaping to safety also has horrible drawbacks. First, you're leaving the dirty work for others thus increasing their burden, second if you have any conscience or moral fortitude then you'll live with that for the rest of your life. You may not think so now but you will later - perhaps many years later.