[toss1]

War mongers is a dangerous oversimplification.

The basic problem in the world is that while a majority of the people may want to live self-determined lives, and be governed by a self-ruling democracy, there is a significant minority who wants to, at a personal level steal, extort, or extract value from others, and at a societal/governmental level rule over others. The latter are perfectly happy to steal, extort, extract, and/or rule over others using deception and violence.

If the people who want to live free and self-determined lives and under self-determining governments are not better prepared and better armed than the bullies, thieves, and authoritarians, they WILL be ruled by those bullies, thieves, and authoritarians.

If someone comes to your home to steal, rape, rule, or otherwise harm you or your family, is your response to say "sure, do what you want", or will you defend yourself?

Will you not call the cops if you have a chance because they might use violence to subdue or even kill your assailants (because they'd be doing violence on your behalf)?

If you defend yourself, or call the cops to do so, are you a warmonger?

If someone attacks our land and people, or a neighbor's land and people, and we call the military to defend ourselves, are we warmongers?

It is a useless accusation that undermines real understanding of what is happening.

[andrepd]

Yes, self-defense is a legitimate use of violence. Is there any other point at all in this thread?

When people say they are "anti-war" or "pacifist", they do not mean anti-self-defense. This kind of rethoric is uninteresting.

(Case in point: I am anti-war and I voted in favour of sending military aid to Ukraine and adoptions sanctions over Russia)

[toss1]

>>Yes, self-defense is a legitimate use of violence. Is there any other point at all in this thread?

Yes, there is another point.

Many people, simply refer to all parties as "warmongers". The "warmonger" accusation is thrown every day at the people, politicians, and countries sending arms to Ukraine. Some of this can be attribute to Active Measures Dezinformatsiya "shaping the information space" directly from Russia and some to useful idiots who parrot the same lines, but not all of it. I've encountered many, like the OP, who just talk about any person or country in a position to project violent power, as a "warmonger" if they suggest using that power.

There are also many people who will claim that the USA is a "warmonger nation", far worse than Russia and China. While the USA has started military action since WWII, and some of it erroneously, it is NOT the USA that is "warmongering" in any way equivalent to the expansionist states Russia and China, both of whom have a continuous history of "annexing" neighbors (Tibet, HongKong, South China Sea, East China Sea, etc. & Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine), while the US has certainly behaved as the worlds policeman (and sometimes over-aggressively), it has not annexed anyone. Yet, there is plenty of "warmongering" rhetoric thrown at the USA, including in it's support of Ukraine, and claims that it is worse than CCP and Russian Federation.

So, what we need to distinguish is who is the expansionist aggressor, and who is the we hope better prepared and better armed democracy.

(That said, if a better-armed democracy tips over into an autocracy, watch out. and make no mistake, there are strong movements in the USA that are attempting to do exactly that, starting with actions to undermine democracy such as undermining the independent judiciary, denying elections, etc.)

EDIT: Plus, people are happy to prattle on about how the US Defense Budget exceeds the next X nations combined budgets, and how it is such a "warmonger" state. Yet when it finally becomes seen that we need to literally push back against Russia or China and defend democracy itself, it's pretty handy how all that turns out to be the "Arsenal Of Democracy" and we can actually supply the effort without breaking much of a sweat. And then people who normally call the US a "warmongering nation" can happily say "I'm all for defending countries"...

So, the main point is that I'm calling out the inconsistency inherent in the "warmonger" labeling.