Posted on 03/02/2010 10:03:59 AM PST by Mobile Vulgus
bump
That's left to the Paultards and Buchananites.
Which is precisely why the Germans lost the Battle of Britain. After Berlin was bombed, Hitler wanted to focus on bombing civilians instead of strategic military facilities, it was the breather the British needed.
Pound sand!
First time I've heard that although I understand that Hitler had a grudging respect for the British. However he had no such compunctions about any of the other European nations.
Regards,
GtG
What??? Just because the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor???
I guess it depends on your definition of “unavoidable.”
BTW: the concept of “just war,” as I have read it, is crap. Its just a way to guarantee that the barbarians (who don’t fight according to ANY rules) win.
he’s on a roll.
i just finished 4 books on DOWNFALL, the proposed invasion of japan. casualties would have passed 500,000 for the allies and the japanese would have lost millions. a blockade instead of invasion would also have killed millions of japanese. the anti-bombing, truman lied about casuallties people throw out figures that were estimates. these estimates increased as more became known about the japanese defenses.
I believe he thinks he is the male counterpart to Rigoberta Menchu, except I don’t see a Peace Prize in his future.
BTW: It was mass murder. So were Tokyo, Dresden, etc., etc. It was terror-bombing, not military bombing.What foolish nonsense. We expected at least half a million casualties of OUR troops with an invasion of Japan. Likely the death toll of Japanese would have been three times that.
WAR, my friend, is not a dinner party. It means KILLING the enemy and the Japanese people supported their war effort with all their hearts. THEY were the enemy and not one American should feel any sadness over the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. None.
You have missed the point. Murder is always wrong, no matter how desirable some of its effects are.
Is it okay for a wife to poison her husband if she stands to inherit $10, or $10,000, or $100,000,000,000? Is it okay to kill a baby if it means being able to go to the prom, or to finish college, or to win a beauty contest?
Once you say that you can murder people if the purpose is good enough, then the decision about WHEN the purpose is good enough is entirely up to the murderer and nobody else.
If you argue that dropping the bombs on Japan saved a few million Americans and Japanese, I can say that dropping the bombs established the principle by which both the Japanese and Americans have murdered tens of millions of their own babies. And we would both be right.
No, you miss the point. Murder is not properly used for defining the sort of deaths in war that we are talking about. Your use of murder is false and your examples are a false dichotomy. Apples and oranges as they say.
When soldiers deliberately kill civilians they are charged with...wait for it...wait for it...wait for it...murder!
bump
Ping.
To put it another way: The distinction is PRECISELY between killing that is murder and killing that is not murder.
When civilians are targeted and killed deliberately, they have been murdered, whether the killing was done by a soldier or pilot contrary to orders, or in obedience to orders. If done in obedience to orders, the guilty include those who initiated the orders, no matter how far up the chain of command.
In WWII, American officers were in constant battle with British officers about terror bombing. The distinction was precisely between bombing military assets and bombing civilians for purposes of terror. The objections raised by the Americans were based PRECISELY on the assertion that targeting civilians was murder.
The notion that in war you can just slaughter people is a barbaric macho attitude that has no place in the American military, and never has.
The deliberate killing of civilians in WWII, including the dropping of the atomic bombs, was a descent into barbarism. It is perfectly understandable, given the demented, psychotic barbarity of the Japanese, but it was still murder.
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/2009/05/19/the-truth-about-the-atomic-bombs-print-version/
Well worth the read.
It was the primary Naval base of the Empire.
Nagasaki was not targeted by accident.
It was the primary Maritime shipping port of the Empire.
The notion that in war you can just slaughter people is a barbaric macho attitude that has no place in the American military,...It really is a redherring to say that carpet bombing in a world war is murder. It's insane, actually. You have no basis to argue that war at ALL is "legitimate" killing using your abstruse distinctions.
Nice assertion, prove it! That they were 'civilian'.
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