[The Might]

Meh, I give, I give, you point out well that there was a lot of mistrust between Gondorians and Easterlings, especially considering the "Easterlings used for human sacrifices in the Second Age" part which I had previously forgot.

Ok, you win this one. I accept indeed that under these circumstances it would have been fairly unlikely for the Haradrim to accept a Gondorian offer over a Sauronian one. At least at the time of the War of the Ring.

Perhaps had the Kings of Gondor been less suprematist as Pitchwife says, there would have been more chances for peace earlier on and for a closer relation to the southern and eastern tribes. I guess education also plays a big role here, it is easy to subdue and persuade the less educated, so had Gondorians also tried to educate them instead of just fighting them off and conquering them there would have been hope.

I know, I know, a lot of "ifs" above, one could go as far back and say, "and if Feanor had not made the Silmarils" etc., but still I feel that in a different timeline with kinder Gondorians in the Third Age Khand and Harad may have been viable alliance partners.

To end this just had one thought, one slight piece of evidence that the Haradrim and the Variags kept their word and didn't do any evil against Gondor is that the story "Return of the shadow" (correct name?!) actually was centered around evil Gondorians and not revolting Haradrim. Of course, the story was not finished, so it is only slight evidence.


Now to the Hobbits. I agree there Pitchwife, except on one point, namely that of the last question.

Was it necessary? I say it was not. I again feel that there would have been a cleaner way out of it, even in the Age of Men. Always answering by violence is easy and often useful, but not necessarily the only and probably not the best way.

Just a little comparison for which I hoped to not be judged too harshly, I think it again fits since it is highly contemporary, an issue as I am writing the post actually.

It's just like with what Israel is doing in the Gaza strip. Attacked from within this area, like the Hobbits were attacked by the ruffians from the outside. It responds with violence.

Was this action also necessary?

And really bringing it to a bigger scale - do you always need to kill something that's in your way? Because if yes, then we have a lot of killing to do in the time to come.