One person or group of persons who don't share the same beliefs, don't hold others in the same regard and have no reservations about imposing their will, forcibly if necessary, upon others.

I think most people would agree with this. Those who don't simply haven't found themselves on the wrong end of that single divergent opinion of which you speak. For individuals, it typically means they've never been mugged, robbed, assaulted, whatever.

The paradox in regards to pacifism is that it is completely doable, but much like a nation that declares neutrality, it means having such an imposing built in capacity to defend via force that aggressors have to seriously weigh the potential risks and losses against any benefits in seizing assets or territory.

By the same token, any individual that wants to declare themself a pacifist would probably do well to turn themself into the baddest mofo on the block that no one would take the chance to antagonize. Unfortunately, few pacifists do so and instead depend and rely upon the good will of bad individuals.

There's lots of things wrong with what you wrote.

First of all the police is reactive, not proactive. It's role is to make sure that all goes well within society.

The army's role isn't strictly reactive, and often times the army creates the conflicts (for example attacking another country). Wars don't represent the will of the people (I'm talking about both sides of a conflict), they're power games of political leaders. It's not really in any individual's interest to invade country X, or attack country Y etc. The citizens of country Y did not do anything to the citizens of country X and vice versa. These conflicts are started to political leaders, but are fought by normal people, who have nothing to benefit from them (though political leaders often use manipulation under the guise of patriotism and nationalism to fool people into thinking that their power games really concern them).

They are all "natural", but also avoidable. War is the result of human will, not of some uncontrolable natural circumstances.

In nature it's perfectly natural for those who are weaker and have less desirable traits to die, but he humans go against that and try to save everybody.

Lots of terrible things go on in nature, but that's because animals have no better way of solving their problems. It's simply their best solution.

However, we humans have superior intellect comapred to other animals, therefore you'd think we'd be able to solve our conflicts without killing eachother. War is nothing more than those fights kids have in kindergarden or school, except the kids are much bigger, much stronger, they use guns and seriously hurt eachother, sometimes killing eachother. The main difference is that they don't even know why they're there and what the other kids ever did to them, and vice versa.

@DeadNotSleeping:

During the Flood of '97, also known as the Flood of the Century for those living in Winnipeg, MB, the Canadian Forces played a crucial and visible role in the efforts to protect the city from dangerously rising water levels.  After the Haitian earthquake, a total of two thousand troops have been sent there over an extended period of time to assist in rescue efforts, rebuilding, and supporting the understandably overburdened law enforcement.

That's very nice and all, but that's not even close to being the main purpose of the military.

Our presence in Afghanistan, which you might call an 'Illegal Invasion' has not only been approved by the Afghan leader, but begged us not to leave.  Our presence there is terribly unpopular among Canadians and there is a lot of pressure against our minority government to leave...but they want us there.  They want us there because of our contributions in building schools and hospitals, training their police officers and adding general stability by combating an enemy that have undermined their own society for years.

Do most Afghans want you there? Also, should that matter? It's their country, and you have no right to interfere in how the country is ran. It's no wonder Canadians are unsatisfied by your presence there. You're suppose to be defending Canada, not invading other countries and getting mixed up ain issues that don't concern you. There used to be an "enemy" that "underminded" my country's society for decades, and we solved that problem by ourselves, with no interference from any foreign nation. If Afghans wanted to change things within thei society, they should've done it by themselves.

This training I am receiving, contrary to your assessment of military training (which appears to derived entirely from Full Metal Jacket), is the best experience of my life, beating many other fantastic experiences in my years.  The others in my Division feel the same.

Well, I wouldn't expect anything less from a soldier.

Considering the qulaity of our training and the education that comes with it, mandatory military service would do tremendous good in troubled lives.

I know for sure that mandatory military service would trouble my life, and that they'd have to kill me before forcing me to undergo it.

And his involvement in the War was necessary; the world learned a harsh lesson of what happens when a belligerant military force is ignored.  Time and time again it is demonstrated that leaving these things alone just makes the situation escalate until there is no other choice but to act--therefore it is better to confront these forces.

The middle eastern nations you illegallu invaded are hardly "belligerant military forces". Actually, the reasoning for invading has to do with overblown actions of anti-globalisation terrorists, which hardly calls for military action. And WWII may have been avoided had it not been for the Treaty of Versailles, and the hypociritcal Allies who put all the blame on Germany and the Centra Powers, even though both sides wanted WWI to take place (there were no "heroes" and "villains" in that war). Considering what they did to Germany, it's no wonder Hitler came to power, and WWII happened. All WWII proves is that people leanred nothing from WWI.

Police are the same way.  They are trained to fight, and when necessary, to shoot, to kill.  And to do these things to people in my community, not the 'evil desert people' abroad.  Yet if the police were disbanded due to the 'immoral' things they must do, things would go South real quick.

But the police does not do "immoral things" (unless they're corrupt or something). On the contrary, they're job is to prevent immoral things for taking place, or bringing those who commit such acts to justice. The police have a real enemy, the criminal who decided to commit an illegal act. The military does not have real enemies. You shoot and kill people, who shoot and try to kill you, but what did you do to them, and what did they do to you? Why are you their enemy, and why are they your enemy? They're just following some political leader who manipulates them into thinking that country X is their enemy, and country X must be destroyed, and that the soldiers from country X are evil and want to destroy them (because all people from country X think all day about how their country is evil and must be destroyed), and the very same goes for you, and what you're told.

Same with the military.  So long as there are people in this world willing to summon forces under their command that will gladly hurt, kill and die under the command of such a person, a force will be required to defend against them.

There will be wars as long as there are people in the world willing to hurt, kill and die under the command of any person who decides to play warlord (even though it's the warlord's conflict, and it only concerns the warlord and the rival warlord, but stupid things like patriotism and nationalism cloud their judgemnt). If there's ever gonna be a day when people all over the world will tell political leaders to go f**k themselves and fight their own wars, if they want war so bad, then there will be no wars. You're not one of those people.

It should be a duty for men and voluntary for women IMO.

And its not about serving your government but serving your country.

If men have to, so should women. There's nothing special about them.

Also, your country doesn't exist, it's just a cultural convention.

They shouldn due to their lack of needed physical  strenght. They are not build for war, so they should serve only if they feel they want/can. Same goes for men with retardation or any kind of physical disability IMO.

And do you really think my country doesnt exist? Wow, really...its right next to yours on the west.

Women can be good soldiers just as men can. There have been somesocieties in the world (I think mostly in Africa) where women were the ones who went to war (or served alongside men) and were just as good, if not better than men at physical combat. It's a geneder sterotype of the west that women are weak and can't fight, a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, because girls are conditioned to dislike physical activities since early childhood over here.

And Serbia is just some land on which some people live on. It's not the sort of living breathing entity you envision. All that matters is the people who live over there, not "the country", which is something no one should ever forget.

Also, you live in Germany now. I'm starting to see why people in the West are so annoyed by immigrants.

Why should it be a duty for men? What has a "country" done for men (not that a country can do anything), which it hasn't done for women?

If it were up to me, I'd pull out of Afghanistan tomorrow.

Yeah, me too.  Although, I've known of The Advocates since 2000 or so.  I even helped run a couple Operation Politically Homeless Booths in TN before I moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project.  Live Free or Die!