Posted on 02/21/2007 8:59:05 PM PST by dervish
bump
It can only be that way since war, by definition, is a state of human activity wherein death and suffering are defining characteristics. The final result of war, in numbers of deaths, destruction and suffering, is never a quantifiable figure. Uncertainty is another unwavering characteristic of war if not life itself. The only certainty in war is that as long as it continues its characteristic conditions, ergo death, destruction and suffering, will exist.
The state of war comes to exist precisely because one party has chosen to abandon conventional notions of morality in human relations. If the concept of morality is going to be applied to war it has to be grounded in the reality of what war is in relation to what morality itself means regarding human relations.
In my mind morality is the concept of ethical guidelines for human behavior aimed at achieving interpersonal relationships that reflect loving kindness, equanimity and compassion. Within the framework of that definition, which may be mine alone, the only moral choice in war is to seek its end for the purpose of restoring the pursuit of moral relations on rational grounds. A ground of human affairs devoid of intentional acts of killing and destruction.
Just yesterday I described the idiot compassion that liberals display in their intellectualized fantasies of 'peace on earth.' Their utopian ideal. It's worth reposting it here...
"Liberals prefer to stand back and watch millions slaughtered (Cambodia, post U.S. Vietnam, Laos, Rwanda, on and on and on...) than to take responsibility for anything. Liberal compassion is rooted in ignorance and is nothing more than a warm fuzzy feeling of self-congratulatory hypocrisy. It is a major cause of suffering not a solution to it."
The idea of applying a conventional moral ethic in war towards the enemy is just such a warm fuzzy self-congratulatory feeling. In terms of cause and effect it results in death and suffering and is itself a cause for a continuing state of war to exist.
If the enemy can be made to submit unconditionally without violence applied to them that's great. But the reality is that anyone, individual or group, that has committed themselves to inflicting injury, death and destruction to achieve their aims is unlikely in the extreme to abandon that course without the application of overwhelming force and an unambiguous demand to capitulate. That is the simple straightforward psychology of human behavior devoid of wishful thinking.
You have presented overwhelming evidence to that effect. There is no doubt in any rational mind that Dresden was saturated with targets of classical military infrastructure. It is also not arguable that the weapons and technology of the day combined with the conditions of war itself made it impossible to effectively destroy those targets with some sort of surgical precision that didn't even exist as recently as Gulf War I.
Beyond any half-baked argument about military strategies and targets; (I'm not impugning your efforts) ALL of Germany was our enemy. Every citizen was a defacto part of the German state and thusly the German war machine. If it had been determined that deliberately targeting civilians would have brought Germany to heel faster and more effectively than any other method then IMO that would have been the most ethical choice.
Clearly that is not what was decided or what occurred.
Clearly that is how Hitler's Germany operated.
It was also payback for Coventry. Even though it was also a place of aircraft production.
I dunno.
The title makes his quote seem bad... but the quote just states that more people died in Dresden then the WTC, which is true... but doesn't mean a dang thing one way or the other.
It've been nice to ready the rest of his speech to be able to tell whether he was railing against the US... or for the US.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.