Human Shields and Choice

[Occhidiangela]

"It's the same the whole world over
'Tis the poor, who bear the pain
It's the rich, get all the pleasure,
Aint it all a f***ing shame!"

(Chorous of a Rugby Song, whose opening verse, IIRC, starts
She was on the bridge at midnight
Casting snowballs at the moon . . .)

This being a Rugby Song, I'll leave the rest as an exercise to such readers as want to investigate those lyrics on a web site somewhere devoted to Rugby songs. They are out there, oh yes, and I have found them. :D

And thank you for making sure I got your meaning completely. I do agree that the concept of "deserved" was ill applied.

[WarBlade]

However, I think they are on the wrong side of the conflict, which unfortunately makes them the enemy.

The enemy? Are you sure? They've already voiced their intention to be among the non-combatant people of Iraq. People that should not, under any circumstances, come under fire.

Outside of the media (propaganda?) war, I fail to see how these people are enemies.

It is one thing to believe that your government is wrong, and work to change the minds of your elected officials or vote in new ones, but quite another to actively work against your own government.

Various nationalities are represented within that crowd.
Did they believe the American government is wrong? Yes.

Did they work to change the minds of elected officials? To a point. The Rumsfeld band doesn't appear to want to listen though.

Did they vote in new officials? Well they can't, can they. Blair and Howard won't last past their respective next elections by the looks though.

Did they work against their own government? Some of them are doing so. Did those democratically elected proponents of war governments work against the will of their own people?

Yes.

And people are calling it a crime too. <_<

[--Pete]

Hi,

. . . one must either be for one's country or against it. If against it, one can be neutral or active. Active opposition is a crime. As in "traitor" -- an offense that still gets one shot even in some countries that have no other death penalty. So, yes. If they came from a country that goes to war with Iraq, then they picked which side they are on, that makes them the enemy. Further, if they fall into the hands of the forces of the country they come from, then they should be stood against the nearest wall and shot.

--Pete

[Chaerophon]

Good lord...

What I had intended as a mere side comment has become something else.

I can't believe that ANYONE would try to justify the purposeful, deliberate murder of 135,000 PLUS mostly refugee civilians as being "part of war". The city had practically no strategic significance, and, as has been stated above, was largely filled with women, children, and those fleeing the war. Crushing the spirit? The war was nearly over! (Not that I feel that such a motivation justifies this particular act in the first place)

Yes, war is war. Murder is also just that, murder. The attack was orchestrated so as to absolutely maximise the amount of death. It progressed, as I understand it, in three waves, the second and third of which were intended to catch civilians out of their homes, surveying the damage and those emergency vehicles that were able to respond. It was a calculated massacre. If it's crushing the spirit that the west was after, they had, no doubt, achieved their goal after the mass deployment of incendiaries on the first night, an atrocity, to my mind, in the first place. Their deployments had no tactical significance as far as military targets are concerned - if that had been the case, the results would have been much better served through the use of other munitions.

I'm not saying that the Germans didn't commit and exceed such atrocities. What I am saying is that this fact doesn't justify further atrocity. If we act in the same (even if to a lesser degree) way as do our enemies, then what is it that makes them our enemies? From your point of view, it would seem that the answers to this question and the only interests of concern in war are solely political and that morality has no place alongside such concerns. Essentially, it would seem that we are saying that, "we don't mind the manner in which you conduct war, just stop trying to take over other countries." While this MAY, indeed, be true, my question would have to then be, "how is that a good thing?" and, "how is this 'truth' not shameful?".

By your reasoning, the Americans should carpet bomb Baghdad and kill as many of its citizens as possible -and each and every one of them would absolutely deserve it. Because they didn't oppose Saddam, of course. Damn weaklings. Not to mention the immense strategic significance of such an act! I mean, the more women and children that you murder when a nation is already on its knees, the more secure is your victory, right?

Edit: Thought that I would address Pete's point re: how is this bombing an example of an atrocity? To my mind, the people of Dresden were as much a part of an extermination plan, if a less demeaning and terrible one, as were the Jews. The Jews were persecuted and exterminated on the basis of race. The people of Dresden were, to take it perhaps a fraction too far, in one night, for all intents and purposes, premeditatedly persecuted and to a frightening degree, exterminated on the basis of their geographic location. I suppose that the key word here is EXTERMINATED. The goal was no less than complete and total eradication. While Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jewish populace was, perhaps, more vile, demeaning, and uninstigated; the nature of the crimes are, to my mind, not so far apart as you seem to believe.

[--Pete]

Hi,

First, who are you responding to? Either use threaded response or quote the person.

Second, I realize you feel strongly about these topics, but shut your emotion down and bring your logic up. Otherwise all you post is crap.

By your reasoning, the Americans should carpet bomb Baghdad and kill as many of its citizens as possible

No. By any logic we should nuke the hell out of Baghdad -- just like we did in '91. Oh, wait. We didn't? Gee, how stupid of us.

--Pete

Response to your edit: The purpose of bombing Dresden was similar to that of Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To cause the leaders of the enemy to surrender the war. It worked in Japan, it didn't in Germany. In Japan it most likely saved many lives. In Germany, those lives (many of them German) were paid to Hitler's stubbornness. And that is the difference between Dresden and Auswitch -- one had a purpose the other was its own purpose.

But why bother? You remind me of a rabid animal rights person I met who took me to task for putting down my cat. In spite of the fat that the cat was dying and in pain, all that jerk could see was that I had it killed. Irrational is as irrational does.

[kandrathe]

The enemy? Are you sure?

Yes. Yes. You know and I know that they are not the targets. They know what they are doing, they know the bombs are coming, and if they are still in the way when the bombs fall, then they will have only served to aid Iraq. Iraq, the nation, is the enemy, and Saddam in particular since he controls everything in Iraq. If you strengthen the enemy, you are the enemy as well.

Various nationalities are represented within that crowd.

They should go home. Be angry with the US if you want, but if the US decides that Iraq is a threat to their security and must do something about it, then they will. Protest in your cities if you like, we get the news here in the US, and understand and even empathize with your arguments. No population of activists standing around in Baghdad is going to change the opinion of the leaders of the US.

Well they can't, can they.

You are in a dictatorship then?

Did those democratically elected proponents of war governments work against the will of their own people?&nbsp; Yes.&nbsp; And people are calling it a crime too.

Representative leaders make decisions on behalf of their populations, and that is what they were elected to do. I can't speak for the positions of Howard, Blair, Chirac, or Schroeder, they are subject to the whims of their respective democracies.

[Dani]

<edit: Sorry, still getting used to the new board...all quotes from Moldran.>

breaking the morale of the German population was a legitimate goal in WW2, seeing how stubborn they kept supporting NS

13th February 1945, the massive general support for the Nazis was gone. At that time they were as trapped as any other victims. The population was kept in line by fear and terror, for example any talk that could be interpreted as defeatism could well get you shot, or worse.

Maybe the act of the carpet bombing of Dresden was not militarily justified (although I think it had alot more justification than is commonly believed - ).

It wasn't just carpetbombed. The operation was done to maximize civilian casualties and disrupt rescue and relief workers. To illustrate here are some main events of the bombing:

13th feb
1. Mosquitos fly over Dresden, dropping marker flares.
2. 22:13 - 22:21 first wave of Bombing, 244 Lancasters.
3. 23:00 -> firestorm in Dresden
4. Emergency relief services from surrounding cities arrive.
14th feb
5. 01:30 second wave of bombing begins, timed to disrupt emergency relief, 529 Lancasters
6. 12:12 third wave of bombing, 316 B17s

75 % of all bombs used were incendiary. Total tons dropped 3479.

If viewed from the perspective of killing as many people as possible, the raid was perfect. It creatively used several kinds of munitions to do as much damage as possible, including heavy ordnance to destroy building and roads, cluster bombs (and timed bombs) to disrupt relief, and ofcource the incendiary for maximum destructiveness.

First of all, going with the flow of such a society is a crime. Wether you agree with their ideology or not, if you don´t do anything against them, you make yourself guilty.

I don't subscribe to this. Totalitarian rulers are not called that for just the kicks of it. Hitler, Stalin, or if you wish, Hussein. Either we hold the general population accountable and free game, in each of these scenarios, or none. And I doubt many sane people advocate massacring entire cities of Iraqi civilians presently? The fallacy of your argument I believe is, that you think in terms of democracies, and try to apply it into totalitarianism.

Second, it is safe to say that the vast majority of Germans agreed with the goals of NS in principle. The fact that they kept supporting NS even after it was clear to the biggest idiot that the war was lost speaks for itself.

No, it is not safe to say that. As I mentioned previously, in the last elections the Nazis got less than 40% of the vote. That alone invalidates majority of the population. For the second part, I think you have an idealized view of primarily what living under totalitarianism is like, and secondarily about the ease of withholding information from people in the 1940s.

In war, all sides usually do bad things. The Germans knew that when they started it. There is no "good war". But there is necessary war. The alternative to the military defeat of Germany was a Europe, and possibly even a world, under Nazi leadership. Luckily, the allied forces prevented that.

The above paragraph is unnecessary. Not only does it patronize with the assumption that someone thinks Germany should not have been opposed, but it also actually opens you up to the "hypocrisy game" of: "Why not USSR?"
Hence I want to reaffirm my position, that the acts of Germany during and before WW2 in no way give a carte blanche for any country fighting it to commit attrocities. And the Dresden raid was an attrocity. It came too late to affect much anything (except inter-allied politics), and it was planned in a way to kill civilians as efficiently as possible. As a humanist I find statements, that "they deserved it" disturbing.

[Chaerophon]

Pete,

1.) I think that you can excuse me at this point for not quite being acquainted with the new system. A mistake.

2.) Your answer to any sort of moral appeal that is not on the basis of what you deem to be factors of utility is that it is crap. I fear not. When you suggest that we should "nuke" Baghdad, it becomes clear that you are unable to put a human face on any sort of conflict. To my mind, you could use a good dose of emotion, yourself.

You see, if I was to suggest at this time that those whom you would like bombed are not, in fact, merely pawns in a great game, but human beings with lives of their own, you would, seemingly, claim that I am, once again, letting my emotions get the best of me. Your right, my damned emotional appeals are completely ridiculous. From a tactical and security standpoint, we're better off to kill them all. Let's do that instead, since we can and all.

[--Pete]

edited

[Chaerophon]

edited

[Chaerophon]

Misposted

[WarBlade]

You know and I know that they are not the targets.&nbsp; They know what they are doing, they know the bombs are coming, and if they are still in the way when the bombs fall, then they will have only served to aid Iraq.&nbsp; Iraq, the nation, is the enemy, and Saddam in particular since he controls everything in Iraq.&nbsp; If you strengthen the enemy, you are the enemy as well.

Strengthen the enemy? Well that's new.

Do these people take up arms in defence of Iraq? No, they do not. To do so would make them an enemy. To stand in the face of the American war machine and and plee for it to back down does not make them an enemy.

You are in a dictatorship then?

No. I vote for the people I want running my country in a democratic election under a proportional representation voting system that yields a more accurate 'snapshot' of the people's will than what most democracies can claim.

But that wasn't what I was posting about. Some (most?) of these people don't get to vote for the American president because some of of them aren't American.

Representative leaders make decisions on behalf of their populations, and that is what they were elected to do.&nbsp; &nbsp; I can't speak for the positions of Howard, Blair, Chirac, or Schroeder, they are subject to the whims of their respective democracies.

Not true.

1.) Bush is a leader I have no right to vote for and yet his administration often makes decisions that effect my life. Effectively Bush makes decisions on behalf of many populations who never voted for him.

2.) Howard and Blair are operating in stark contrast to the collective will of their people and the whims of their democracies will not stop them supporting America. Only their own parties or an early election can do that.

[Occhidiangela]

Here is why.

1. The decision to start the war was Hitler's. He cried havoc, and let slip the dog of war. As the elected leader of the German government, no fooling, he won election as Chancellor, he did not take power in a coup, his and his cabinet's decisions led to the outcomes that included war.

2. The V-1 and V-2 attacks on London were pure terror bombing and explicitly aimed at the civilian populace of London. At some point, the Brits decided that payback was due, and that they would repay in kind a terror attack on a German city. That is the logic of a nation at war.

3. Leaders do not go to war, that would be a duel, nations go to war, and the leaders lead them. But every one is involved.

Was the fire bombing of Dresden strategically necessary? Maybe not, but you might find a Brit or two in 1945 who felt it was emotionally necessary.

This revisionism strikes me as naive in the extreme. War takes emotion to successfully conduct, it takes, really, all you have to win when it is an all or nothing struggle. Ask the Vietnamese: they gave all they had to win, and paid a heavy price.

[Chaerophon]

A simple question: as a general, could you sit in your office, the war being, for all intents and purposes won, and, for the sake of some British sense of emotionally necessary "revenge", order the deaths of at least 135,000 people??? I'm sorry, your argument is nonsense! The British needed an emotional purge?

Sure they were terrorized. But they had won. The situation was under control. The logic of a nation at war be damned. It was wrong. Plain and simple. It can be dressed up however you like it, but not everything is relative. The bombing of Hiroshima was wrong too. Was it necessary - quite possibly and therefore it was, in some sense, 'justified'; however, I don't think that that is the case in Dresden and that is where the difference lies.

[Occhidiangela]

The general does not make the decision. The political leadership does. And Churchill was in the Loop on Dresden. THerefore I remind you, the fire bombing of Dresden was seen as politically necessary, if to give the Londoners a feeling of "we got those dirty bastards back" as for anything else. You need to learn, in my view, to understand the psychology of the Brits at war in WW II. That is why I label your PoV revisionist: it is made in complete absence of the emotional forces on a national scale that were present as part of everyday life in Britain in 1939 to 1945. It was a national war, not a limited war. The war in NOT over until the other side surrenders. Capice?

The Brits and Allies had not won. The war was still on. This is not some issue of a sporting chance, this is WAR in its most complete form. After six years of war, with the full emotion of a nation at war at work, the decsion was made to get payback, from what I have read, payback in spades for the Blitz.

Hiroshima. Do you feel the death of less than 100,000 Japanese was more acceptable to an American president than the death of 500,000 or so Americans, which was the CONSERVATIVE staff estimate? We were still at war with Japan, they had not given up, and the closer we got, the harder they fought, and the Japanese soldiers knew how to fight pretty darned well. They were not surrendering by the hundreds and thousands at a time the way the Germans were in 1945.

Nagasaki? That one I question more than Hiroshima, but I do have to ask this question: once Hiroshima, how could anyone in Tokyo NOT say "it is time to accept defeat."

[Chaerophon]

Hiroshima. Do you feel the death of less than 100,000 Japanese was more acceptable to an American president than the death of 500,000 or so Americans, which was the CONSERVATIVE staff estimate? We were still at war with Japan, they had not given up, and the closer we got, the harder they fought, and the Japanese soldiers knew how to fight pretty darned well. They were not surrendering by the hundreds and thousands at a time the way the Germans were in 1945.

I know, that's why it was justified. But that fact doesn't make the murder of 100,000 "right". Merely necessary.

I hear what you are saying re: the British mindset, but for me, such an argument just doesn't hold water. If it was "wrong" before the war, then it is still "wrong" during the war, just as wrong as it is now. When the motive behind such an attack is purely revenge, the act becomes abhorrent to me. I admit, the Brits lost family, friends, and entire communities. To return the favour when it is unnecessary and has no justification other than "emotional contentment", is not only unjustified, it is WRONG on another level altogether as a result.

Edit: I know that the decision was, in part, Churchill's to make. That quote wasn't intended as proof that he wasn't in on the decision making process. My example of a general was simply for the sake of example.

[whyBish]

If you strengthen the enemy, you are the enemy as well.

Didn't Bush say that already, 'if you are not with us, you are against us'? So when can the U.N. expect to be attacked? :P

[Occhidiangela]

100,000 dead in hiroshima was not 'murder,' it was an act of war. Manslaughter is not murder either, yet the victim is still dead. Accidental death is not murder either, but dead is dead. Choosing to address the folks in Hiroshima as murdered, how about the folks in Pearl Harbor? What were they? Murdered?

No, killed in an act of war. Save 'murder' for the courtroom and the police blotter.

Once again, your sterile context and willingness to write off the emotional element of a nation at war, ignores the reality of war as it has been waged for millenia.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Hi,

When you suggest that we should "nuke" Baghdad

Did you not see that I said "like we did in '91"? Are you so dense that you cannot recognize sarcasm when hit in the face with it? Do you then wonder why I consider you not worth talking to? No logic, no comprehension, no arguments -- bah. You are nothing.

--Pete

Chaerophon successfully pressed the point. The sarcasm of that statement implied an opinion that nuclear strikes against Iraq in 1991, with the massive destruction characteristic of them, "should" have happened. That the troubles of today could have and would have died in the ashes of Bagdhad in 1991, at whatever grievous human cost that would have been exacted back then.

Berating Chaerophon on a personal vein for interpreting the statement as that, well, shows us that even verbal venom can blind.

Other than that, I can disagree with Chaerophon on many other fronts that Occhi has already tabled for me.

[Chaerophon]

Note One: Pearl Harbour was a military installation. That was an act of war.

Note Two: To my mind, dropping a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima is an act of war. It's also murder. Unfortunately, it was what was necessary to prevent extensive further loss of life.

Furthermore, IMO, Dresden is murder to the 'n'th degree. It didn't prevent a loss of life. It was revenge, plain and simple.

I'd also like to point out that we, as a society, tend to like to differentiate ourselves from some of our predecessors. If your perspective holds true, perhaps it's not warranted...? Are you going to justify rape with that same argument? In my opinion, IT DOESN'T WASH. We can be better than that, and we should be better than that. They should have been better than that.