The morality of bombing civilians

[FatButWeak]

LOL So much college freshman philosophy/psychology/sociology mental masturbation: If I go to war with a hated enemy, it's win at all costs; them v us; me v him; gloves are off; kill or be killed. My enemy's wives/children/civilians are all fair game. I fully expect them to believe and do the same.

This is why I advocate and prefer peace to war.

[Bruce Ware]

Trying to make war "tolerable" is what leads to wars that stretch on forever. Ideally, both winner and loser get taxed to such a point that they become willing to settle the disagreement that led to war in the first place at the peacemaking table. I tend to reference Star Trek too much, but the original series episode "A Taste of Armageddon" is an excellent example.

Can anyone ever truly cite a reference to Star Trek "too much"? For a TV show that even Shatner said, "it's just a dumb show; get a life!", Trek was a marvelous piece of cultural survey -- asking questions, pointing to generally accepted premises, challenging the idea that "status-quo is good enough for all us Maytag appliance purchasers."

Even James T. Kirk's actions throughout the series continually illustrated the philosophic fallacy of the Federation's prime directive: "Don't interfere." Kirk interfered routinely because the status quo needed to be challenged, if not overthrown.

Find something on commercial TV today that aims to reach that high into the reasoning mind...

[Nockian]

LOL So much college freshman philosophy/psychology/sociology mental masturbation: If I go to war with a hated enemy, it's win at all costs; them v us; me v him; gloves are off; kill or be killed. My enemy's wives/children/civilians are all fair game. I fully expect them to believe and do the same.

This is why I advocate and prefer peace to war.

Indeed, which is why we should be ansolutely certain we know what we are getting into, just how brutal it's going to be and win at any cost to our enemy. Instead the West is involved in wars which we have no intention of winning in which blood and treasure are sacrificed for such things as 'bringing democracy' or 'liberating a people'.

[CommanderFun]

Find something on commercial TV today that aims to reach that high into the reasoning mind...

The current iteration calling itself "Star Trek" sure is falling flat on its face. But I figured it was a safe bet there were some Star Trek fans around here. Especially having seen a Klingon flag hanging in some of the SS videos.

[old guy]

LOL So much college freshman philosophy/psychology/sociology mental masturbation: If I go to war with a hated enemy, it's win at all costs; them v us; me v him; gloves are off; kill or be killed. My enemy's wives/children/civilians are all fair game. I fully expect them to believe and do the same.

This is why I advocate and prefer peace to war.

My son is a Marine. I got to know a lot of them pretty well and thank God none of them talk like this. But they really are tough guys so felt no need to I guess.

[Al Copersino]

Some Context:

More than twice as many civilians died in world war 2 as military.
Germany and Japan lost over twice as many military as civilians.
The axis powers killed more people than the allies.

All WW2 deaths by country
25M Soviet Union (military deaths 10.7M)
20M China (military deaths 4M)
7.4M Germany *** (military deaths 5.5M)
6.0M Poland
4M Dutch East Indies
3.1M Japan *** (military deaths 2.1M)
2.2M India
2.2M French Indochina
1.7M Yugoslavia
807k Greece
600k France
557k Phillippines
514k Italy ***
500k Romania ***
533k Korea
464k Hungary
450k United Kingdom
419k United States

*** axis for at least part of the war

So all axis deaths combined come in third behind China, by a wide margin.

Pearl Harbor was attacked without a declaration of war, Axis aggression across the planet was unchecked and world domination was likely. The Axis powers military were actively killing civilians at unprecidented rates.

The only way to make the axis stop their massive slaughter of civilians, and world conquest, was the use of force.

Force was used. They stopped when we stopped them.

Japan killed 16M civilians in China alone. Probably another 4M across the rest of Asia, against a loss of 1M civilians in Japan.

Odd to argue "victumhood" under the circumstances.

Superb post. My only beef - a minor one - is that the Hungarians fought with the Nazis.

[JJdd]

LOL So much college freshman philosophy/psychology/sociology mental masturbation: If I go to war with a hated enemy, it's win at all costs; them v us; me v him; gloves are off; kill or be killed. My enemy's wives/children/civilians are all fair game. I fully expect them to believe and do the same.

Do you support the Geneva Convention? What about traditional rules of war and gentleman's agreements? Those worked for a long time. And the point is the US nuking Japan was punitive, not militarily necessary. They were ready to surrender. That is evil regardless of your thoughts on total war.

*** axis for at least part of the war

So all axis deaths combined come in third behind China, by a wide margin.

Pearl Harbor was attacked without a declaration of war, Axis aggression across the planet was unchecked and world domination was likely. The Axis powers military were actively killing civilians at unprecidented rates.

The only way to make the axis stop their massive slaughter of civilians, and world conquest, was the use of force.

The reason the allied civilian death counts are so high is not because of the axis targeting them en masse but because the Russian and Chinese leaderships were incompetent and evil. Mass starvation and soldiers being sent to the front without weapons are not the fault of the axis. It was never the axis intentions to conquer the planet and it wasn't realistic to expect them to do so.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Do you support the Geneva Convention? What about traditional rules of war and gentleman's agreements? Those worked for a long time. And the point is the US nuking Japan was punitive, not militarily necessary. They were ready to surrender. That is evil regardless of your thoughts on total war.

How did we know -- at the time the decision was made -- that they were ready to surrender?

The reason the allied civilian death counts are so high is not because of the axis targeting them en masse but because the Russian and Chinese leaderships were incompetent and evil. Mass starvation and soldiers being sent to the front without weapons are not the fault of the axis. It was never the axis intentions to conquer the planet and it wasn't realistic to expect them to do so.

If by "the axis" you mean Germany and Japan, which parts of the planet had they no intention to conquer?

[RJPinAZ]

It's been a while since I read it, but I thought this book, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, made a pretty convincing case for the vital role dropping the atom bombs had in Japan's decision to surrender and how the bombs were the least costly in terms of casualties of any other alternative.

[Mark E. Hurling]

Mass starvation and soldiers being sent to the front without weapons are not the fault of the axis. It was never the axis intentions to conquer the planet and it wasn't realistic to expect them to do so.

Careful there. The above is on the razor's edge of being an apologetic for paleo (as opposed to neo) fascism. Keep your identity secured lest you you be doxxed and sent to a People's Re-Education Camp by antifa's.