Michael Emrys Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Also, your argument rests on the assertion that the Japanese weren't going to surrender despite the carpet bombings of the mainland by B52's, which i believe is debatable. Actually, carpet bombing by B-52s might have done the trick. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Good, cos you basically ARE advocating the killing of women and children... the women and children of the VICTIMS while you protect the rights of the aggressors and murderers. Would it have been ok if the VICTIMS were allowed to decide whether to drop nukes on Germany and Japan? Would that then be moral, Noob? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 I understand the realpolitik behind war and conquest, i just don't think it should be justified or encouraged, i want the good guys, unlike the bad guys, to feel guilty when they commit an atrocity. The problem as I see it Noob is you are working on absolutes without recognizing that your absolute prohibition has consequences that in turn raise moral questions. You can adhere to your absolute if you think it absolves your conscience, but that is simply like covering your eyes, ears and mouth and hopefully not have to recognize the inconsistency. The fact is that the war created many dilemma where there were only more or less evil alternatives. You have found a way to justify killing to absolve your conscience, but is that really justifiable? Says who? What makes that any more moral? If all you are after is people feel repugnance for an act they nevertheless feel bound to commit (which is I think a line you already crossed when talking about killing combatants) fine. Acting has consequences, not acting has consequences. In both situations the consequences are innocent people will die, what do you do - not act so you feel you are not responsible for the deaths? Sorry not that easy not acting is a choice. You are still responsible. What makes you the "good" guys is not that you don't make a choice, but that you at least are repulsed by it and yet accept the responsibility for having done so. As to the quotes about Japan's willingness to surrender or not. That is all hindsight discussion and even then they really aren't sure how events would have gone. The Japanese government's slaughter of it's own civilians on Okinawa was what the US had come to expect. There was a cultural divide there that was not going to be bridged while the war was still being fought. Japan's actions were incomprehensible to the allies and they saw only one way out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rokko Posted September 10, 2012 Author Share Posted September 10, 2012 Honestly, killing a German child in a bomb raid didn't shorten the war by even a split second. Neither did shooting a Jewish child in the Ukraine. Both deaths were equally pointless. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 What makes you the "good" guys is not that you don't make a choice, but that you at least are repulsed by it and yet accept the responsibility for having done so. I make that point in the quote of mine you have used in your response ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 I make that point in the quote of mine you have used in your response ? Sorry, you lost me on this one. Too many posts on this thread, either I missed it or I simply don't understand the comment. Can you explain? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 The problem as I see it Noob is you are working on absolutes without recognizing that your absolute prohibition has consequences that in turn raise moral questions. What are the moral questions that are raised by not advocating the deliberate targeting of civilians ? but that is simply like covering your eyes, ears and mouth and hopefully not have to recognize the inconsistency. What is the inconsistency you talk about ? The fact is that the war created many dilemma where there were only more or less evil alternatives.You have found a way to justify killing to absolve your conscience, but is that really justifiable? Says who? What makes that any more moral? If all you are after is people feel repugnance for an act they nevertheless feel bound to commit (which is I think a line you already crossed when talking about killing combatants) fine. Why do you think that a/ i'm trying to absolve my conscience, and b/ i'm trying to me more moral, it's not a competition, all i did was state my opinion about a subject, if you think that i'm doing it to appear more moral then i have nothing more to say to you. Also i'm not trying to make anyone feel repugnance for something, i'm just saying i feel repugnant towards certain acts. Acting has consequences, not acting has consequences. In both situations the consequences are innocent people will die, what do you do - not act so you feel you are not responsible for the deaths? Sorry not that easy not acting is a choice. You are still responsible. What i do is not save women and children by killing women and children. The Japanese government's slaughter of it's own civilians on Okinawa was what the US had come to expect. There was a cultural divide there that was not going to be bridged while the war was still being fought. Japan's actions were incomprehensible to the allies and they saw only one way out. It still didn't mean Japan had to be nuked, which was an act that seemed incomprehensible to the rest of the world. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Human behaviour does evolve, but it's like the layers of an onion, you don't remove aspects of human behaviour, you add to the knowledge base that allows people to overcome them, that's why racism is now not tolerated in the West, because each generation gets new perspectives on people from different ethnic backgrounds, and they discover that they are people like themselves, and not they caricatures that were previously presented to them via second hand information, but racism doesn't disappear, it gets marginalised, however that takes a relatively long and peaceful period of time to develop, and those antiquated forms of thinking are just waiting to come back when the **** hits the fan, but the trend is definitely upward, and as, because we know more about war and it's effects, there have arguably been more people willing to get out onto the streets and protest against it in the latter half of the last century than in previous centuries, and this century is certainly no different when it comes to vocal dissent, if you know where to look. That's debatable. I sincerely wish it was true, but if it all disappears when the s**t hits the fan, did it really mean anything? I sit and watch the political debates in my country and watch how much has a very thin veneer over incredibly racist beliefs not to mention the sexism that still seems to be completely acceptable and wonder how much progress we have really made. Seems to me everyone is willing to be nice and share when times are good - mostly anyway. When times go bad, what is under the surface is rarely so good. The statemnt itself Human behaviour does evolve, but it's like the layers of an onion, you don't remove aspects of human behaviour, you add to the knowledge base that allows people to overcome them, that's why racism is now not tolerated in the West implies a position that the East is somehow still suffering from not being as enlightened as the West. That sounds not at all different than quotes from the turn of the previous century. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 What i do is not save women and children by killing women and children. That is exactly what you are advocating. You think Chinese/Korean women and children were not suffering under Japanese occupation? Because you feel better not having ordered their deaths doesn't make you not complicit if you could have stopped it but chose not to do so because Japanese women and children would die. There is no good option. War turns us into something we would rather not be. It is what it is. You can only hope to get through it and still recognize that what you may have had to do is frankly immoral. It still didn't mean Japan had to be nuked, which was an act that seemed incomprehensible to the rest of the world. The nuke question to me is something of a red herring. Firebombing Japan was causing more casualties and the famine that would have resulted from invasion or blockade would have been far worse. Fact is the US was faced with a dilemma, how to end the war for everyone involved as quickly as possible for all. So we had to act and whatever we decided was going to cause destruction and death to someone. So we take an action we are not proud of, but one which we have to commit as the consequences of not doing so are worse. Look at the famine in Holland after the failure of Market Garden. If we had nukes would we not have been justified in using them in 1944 if we could have force the surrender of Germany in Nov 1944. Would we not have been immoral to have not done so and stopped the slaughter in the concentration camps etc? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Joch Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Deliberately targeting civilians, whether done pre-emptively, as an act of retribution, or to save the lives of soldiers, is immoral. standard operating procedure for any war in the past 8,000 years. Even in the Age of "civilized" warfare, the 18th century, civilians still got the short end of the stick. So, is Bomber Harris supposed to be someone who deserves praise? Seeing as he was the one who deliberately targeted millions of civilians with his bombing campaign against German population centres which resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths is that a praiseworthy achievement? yes. You know what? I don't give a flying fvk about German casualties in WWII, military or civilian, except that there weren't more, sooner. agreed. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Wenman Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Human behaviour does evolve, but it's like the layers of an onion, Ogres are like Onions ! P 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Yeah, human behavior does evolve, but the kind of evolution I am talking about requires not just generations, but millennia, usually lots of them. And there is no guarantee that evolution is going to take that particular direction. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Even if you are correct, there is still no justification in targeting civilians, unless you are willing to play the numbers game where it's ok to kill 1,000,000 civilians to save 2,000,000, which i certainly would not do, especially when there is an army prepared to take the hit on behalf of what should be "all" civilians. You'd let 1,000,000 extra people die just so you can sleep at night? This a pretty sick interpretation of "morality". Oh, and soldiers aren't "prepared to take the hit" on behalf of civilians, and certainly not on behalf of the enemy's civilians Soldiers exist to execute foreign policy chosen by civilians. If you don't like the foreign policy; pick better civilians. Don't blame the soldiers (seamen, airmen) for doing what you requested them to. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Hey, if it meant saving the life of my buddies, I would kill a village of civilians if I had to under some circumstances. But in turn, I also risked my life everyday for those civilians. Even God in the Bible wiped out entire cities and since morality is rooted by religious law and thought, what's really the difference? Morality is a made up word just like everyone's thoughts of whats moral. Hitler and Truman did exactly the same thing, killed millions. It's all based on what your side of the fight you wanna be on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt Joch Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 The main aim of WW2 strategic bombing was not to kill German civilians, but to destroy German industry. Unfortunately, with the technology available at the time, you could not do one without the other. The 1991 bombing campaign against Baghdad shows what can be done with precise weapons and only about 10% of the bombs dropped were smart bombs; its up to 100% now. Let us not forget that for a long time, bombing Germany was the only way the Allies could help Russia. From June 41 to june 44, Russia was doing the bulk of the fighting (NA/Sicily/Italy were sideshows). In 41/42, Stalin kept dropping hints he might sign a separate peace. Bombing Germany was the only way to keep up the pressure. The British switched to night bombing because they could not afford the losses. They wanted to bomb military targets, but at first, they had trouble just hitting cities, which is why "breaking morale" became a primary objective. The U.S. bombed in the daylight, in part to minimise civilian casualties, and suffered high losses because of it. Do they get any credit for being so considerate? Why does this topic always generate such heat? German U-Boats also deliberately targeted civilians, but they get a pass. p.s.- "Twelve O' Clock High" is now on Bluray. I picked it up a few weeks back. Still one of the best war movies ever made. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 10, 2012 Share Posted September 10, 2012 Ogres are like Onions ! P "Ogres are like onions" "They stink?" "Yes. No." "Oh, they make you cry." "No." "Oh, you leave em out in the sun, they get all brown, start sproutin' little white hairs." "NO. Layers. Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers." "Oh, you both have layers. Oh. You know, not everybody likes onions." God I love that scene. Parfaits! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Deliberately targeting civilians, whether done pre-emptively, as an act of retribution, or to save the lives of soldiers, is immoral. War is immoral. Sad, but it's true. People do terrible things to each other during wars. It's never been like chess. I wish that it were too but I'm not naive and so don't expect it to. Civilians have always been targets in wars too. It's just that in the 20th Century, technological advances made them more vulnerable and effectively put them on the front line. One should not get into a situation where one tries to score human rights violations, based on the criteria in the above quote one could accuse the UK and the US of the same things, the only difference being that the Nazis compressed their atrocities into a five year time frame and had more devastating weapons. I'm not scoring human rights violations. Just stating the obvious. You might want war to be 'good guys' versus 'bad guys' where the guys in the white hats never do anything wrong. That's Hollywood. It's never been like that. It's probably never going to be like that either. When you're in a fight for survival, you will probably be surprised at what YOU, the moral philospher, will be prepared to do to win. Oh, and moral =/= good. Hitler and some of the leading nazis were highly moral people. I've met some really obnoxious 'moral' people in my time who did no good for their community but felt superior anyway. I prefer to be a good person than a moral one any day. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 But that's appeasement, which is not what i was talking about. Again, that's not what i was talking about. I was answering your question about Chamberlain. I don't think it takes too much of an effort to imagine a certain someone speaking those very words. I am not sure who you are talking about but I am gonna assume it's Hitler...And it doesn't matter if he spoke those EXACT same words...His intent was to invade and enslave my intent would be to make sure someone like him was stopped. TWO very different ideas. Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 I've said all i'm going to say on the subject. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 I've said all i'm going to say on the subject. LOL and honestly Noob, I don't really want to change your mind. We should look on civilian casualties with abhorrence. Convincing anyone including yourself that there is a grey area to morality is not how I want to be remembered. I have just had a lot of experiences in my life that have taught me that whenever I am convinced I am supporting something that is morally right, I later find things weren't quite so clear cut. An example? In my youth I got involved in demonstrations against apartheid and ended up participating in events to raise support and awareness for the struggle in what was then Rhodesia. In my own small way I helped the Zimbabwe African National Union achieve victory. Now I watch as Robert Mugabe has become one of the worst despots in Africa and ZANU victimizes it's own people to maintain power. This is what I helped do. It is not something I am particularly proud of now. Was apartheid wrong, certainly. Was there another answer other than ZANU and the patriotic front, not really. However that doesn't make me feel better when I watch the wretched existence the Zimabawean people continue to endure and know I had even a very small part in it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noob Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 LOL and honestly Noob, I don't really want to change your mind. We should look on civilian casualties with abhorrence. Convincing anyone including yourself that there is a grey area to morality is not how I want to be remembered. Don't flatter yourself, my views remain the same, and i haven't heard anything yet to change them, but it's quite taxing trying to have a discussion with over five people that are as certain about their perceptions as i am of mine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 We should look on civilian casualties with abhorrence. I would state that as we should look on War with abhorrence. War is the culprit here. The civilian casualties come about as a result of the war. War has been glamourised too much in the past. And with the way it's handled by the media nowadays, it makes for good TV too. The reality of war is horror. It has been that way in the past, present and will remain so for all time. Avoid war. Avoid civilian casualties. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Don't flatter yourself, my views remain the same, and i haven't heard anything yet to change them, but it's quite taxing trying to have a discussion with over five people that are as certain about their perceptions as i am of mine. May you never be faced with the results of your position and find them as morally repugnant as you now think your opponents positions are. It isn't a fun place to be. And never asume it can't happen. Life has a way of making you realize how small your concerns are. You have already stated killing "combatants" is okay. What moral dilemma did you face that made you decide taking a life is something that could be found acceptable? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 Avoid war. Avoid civilian casualties. Play CM though! There's no need to worry, in CM, about civ cas, either. No civs = no civ cas. Which is about the only way n00b's utopia will ever be realised. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 11, 2012 Share Posted September 11, 2012 I would state that as we should look on War with abhorrence. War is the culprit here. The civilian casualties come about as a result of the war. War has been glamourised too much in the past. And with the way it's handled by the media nowadays, it makes for good TV too. The reality of war is horror. It has been that way in the past, present and will remain so for all time. Avoid war. Avoid civilian casualties. Almost, but would appeasing Hitler and not having gone to war have stopped civilian casualties? Do the concentration camps not count? I am just being devil's advocate here PT, I am not saying that is your position. Civilians can suffer in many ways with a military action never having occurred. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.