Not another mess…

Gaunilon:

Those who do not know history should not pretend that they do.

Germany started the Blitz after England bombed Berlin, for what it’s worth. The British (and us Canadians) started that particular atrocity. The justification used was when one load from a German bomber was mistakenly jettisoned over London.

Where do I start with this load?

1. The LONDON Blitz started after the abortive raid on Berlin, yes. However, to imply that the Western Allies were the ones who started carpet bombing in Europe is simply nothing but a putrid collection of misinformation and moral blindness.

As early as WWI, Germany had employed a primative form of “terror bombing” against the Allies (including the “first” London Blitz in 1916-18), and against Poland in 1918-19. These were not attacks on troops or supplies, but against the populace itself at a time when it could not even be justified as an attack on the enemy’s industrial capacity. It was, bluntly, cold-blooded murder in violation of international law that (and THIS is important) was UNPRECEDENTED by anything before it.

During the Interbellum, the Germans once again willfully did this, first in Ethiopia (officially as Italians) and later in Spain, particularly in Guernica and Bilbao.

When WWII broke out, it did to a hail of German bombs falling on Warsaw, Lwow, and Brest-Litovik, in addition to smaller local campaigns against the infrastructure.

Later on, to force the Dutch to captitulate, the Germans bombed the city of Rotterdam, leveling over a square mile of it.

Do you know what “Bomber” Harris and the RAF were doing at this time?

THEY WERE DROPPING PACIFIST LEAFLETS ON GERMAN CITIES!

2. Oh yes, and I love how you describe the attack as being one solitary German bomber attacking London out of the blue.

Yes, it is true that Hitler had strictly forbidden aerial attack against the capital.

But this was far after Adlertag, and the Battle of Britain- and the wanton targeting of British cities from Coventy to Northern Ireland- had already been going on for quite a while.

Then Bomber Harris et al took things to new lows with the carpet bombing of German cities, and the US started firebombing and eventually nuking Japanese cities.

No, Bomber Harris did NOT “take” things to a new level, because the Germans, Soviets, and Japanese had ALREADY taken it there!

Again, we have

Warsaw 1939
Rotterdam 1940
London 1940
Coventy 1940
Shanghai 1937
Chungking 1937-1943
Peking 1937

All of these BEFORE a single bomb was dropped on a German or Japanese city.

“Bomber” Harris and his Western Allied (yes, I am deliberately excluding Stalin’s goons from this count, because they came in after this came into effect) were merely reacting to Berlin’s brutality, and not the other way around.

But that wouldn’t fit in with your narrative, now would it?

Plenty of blame to go ’round.

True, but the blame is NOT apportioned equally. Some indisputably have FAR more than others.

Once people decide that the end justifies the means, there is no limit to how low they will go in order to win.

Somehow I failed to see British or American talks about using gas, raping German and Japanese civilians, or otherwise running amok.

There are limits. It is just that when your opponent utilizes something like carpet bombing, you either must also do so or you risk a severe military disadvantage.

This is a real question you folks are going to have to address soon w.r.t. interrogation; otherwise you are going to find yourselves torturing and raping the relatives of terrorists in a few years in order to glean essential information on upcoming attacks.

How so?

We used torture outright in WWI, WWII, Korea, and Indochina. Yet in all that time, we still have maintained our “standards”-ugly as they may be- and we still actually TRY those who break them.

How is this like what the Russians did in Chechnya, hum?

It leads to what the Russians do in Chechnya.

That, and simple ethnic rancour (do not get me started about Caucasian/Central Asian History).

If enough Americans believe it it will lead to Americans doing the same things to terrorists and their relatives.

Yes, but you are acting as though it is everything or nothing. It is not. There is a reason the Western Allies bombed German cities into the ground but did not attack their medical buildings unless absolutely forced to (ie the late-war practice of using it as an HQ). There is a reason 90% of the POWs we took actually survived in both wars.

It is because there is a difference between making some necessary sacrifices to win and between falling completely into the mess of “the ends justify the means.”

And that is one of the main differences between the Russians in Chechnya and ourselves in Iraq, Afghanistan, and our other conflicts.

Believe me, you will not recognize America if you go down that road.

Too far, and I will not want to recognize it. But at some point in almost every president’s career, they are forced to walk some degree down it in order to make sure we DO recognize America when it emerges from a crisis. The trick is pulling back at the right time.

You’re right, it was my grandfather’s ass.

His and millions of other men and women, both civilian and military, and of many nations.

Why? Because if a campaign in Japan was as bloody as predicted, it would likely have left us too weak to fend off the Soviets like we did on the Elbe River.

Don’t target civilians. Ever. Die first.

But what happens when the enemy, in his perfidy, chooses to FORCE civilians at you, like when the Japanese regime forced virtually their entire populace into being expendable pawns in their little games? What do you do when you are confronted by a preschooler or an octagenarian weilding a bamboo spear? A baby or invalid rigged to explode?

These are questions you will NEVER be able to answer, situations you will NEVER be able to solve, with your foolish and absolutist platitudes.

War is hell. Simple as that.

If by targetting the terrorists you will also take out the civilian, so be it. That is collateral damage; the death of the civilian is not intended but merely foreseen as an undesired consequence.

Well, at least you have some sense…

If, however, one decides to deliberately kill the civilian in order to stop the bad guys then this is wrong. For example, deciding to break the will of the bad guys by killing their loved ones (this is, in effect, what area bombing in WWII was about).

1. And what happens if attacking a key point of the enemy’s organization requires some degree of civilian casualties? Dresden did not happen because of some perverse desire by the RAF and USAAF to destroy the “Jewel of Saxony,” as I have heard so many people talk about while condeming the murderous British, but to prevent the Germans from moving several units from the West to the East while also damaging the munitions and supplies stockpiles the OKW had amassed there. It is ironic that it probably helped SAVE a lot of German lives by eliminating an important strongpoint and allowing the areas to the East of it to be captured by the Western Allies and not the Soviets. So where do you draw the line?

2. I feel it justified to note that the carpet bombings- terrible as they were (and make no mistake, I will NEVER deny that they were terrible)- are part of the reason Germany is as solid a Democracy as it is today. The Western Allies literally forged the BRD out of the bombed-out ashes of Western Germany and the tears of millions of Germans. Compare to WWI, where Germany was virtually unsinged and fed on a diet of victory literally until the main German Army disintegrated on the West and their forces in the East were caught in the crossfire between themselves, the Soviets, the Whites, and the Poles. The former became a stalwart Democracy. The latter elevated Hitler to power.

The issue is not as black-and-white as you or I would like to believe.

The next logical step is to torture an innocent person to death in order to get someone else to give up info.

I hate to say this, but “Define Innocent.” Do you mean “innocent” as in “an affiliated member of a group but innocent of a given crime (say, an Islamist captured as part of a sniper/demo team but who was not directly responsible)” or innocent as in Capital-Eye Innocent and of no relation?

For the former is excusable. The latter is not.

I’m not saying torture isn’t bad (it is), but it is a powerful tool to use, and while it must be used VERY carefully, sometimes use it we must.

At that point most Americans/Canadians realize it’s wrong (so far), but logically it’s no different from the prior example.

Oh, so attacking a very valuable strategic target to not only eliminate resistance but also to convince the few remaining malcontents of their futility is the same as torturing an Innocent to put pressure on the guilty?

Perhaps in the former definition of innocent, but not in the Latter.

If you are genuinely looking to learn more concerning the ethics of this topic (which has been a subject of contention since at least Socrates, who asked exactly your question) I suggest googling “Principle of Double Effect” which encapsulates some of the best thought re these scenarios.

And I have.

And I suggest DEMAND you google:

The Battle of the Bulge

Operation Downfall

The Bombing of Dresden

The Bombing of Warsaw

The Bombing of Rotterdam

and

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

Just to get you started.

If anybody was foolish enough to try and fight an aggressor like Hitler, Bismarck, Lenin, Mao, or Stalin using your “morality,” the time until the end would be measured in days. And the aftermath would be measured in the blood of the Innocent.

Imagine what you will, but that is the truth.

It may be hard to distinguish civilians from soldiers in this war, but there are civilians nonetheless. Example: infants are indisputably civilians.

True, and I agree. However, what happens when the enemy’s warriors choose to, say, rig that infant up with a bomb and send it at you? THEN what would you do?

The Jihadists have used this strategy, the Imperial Japanese certainly planned to do so, and the brutal fact of the matter is that there are such situations that defy attempts to walk the line, as all must.

It is a logical fallacy to say “we can’t tell who the civilians are, therefore there are no civilians.”

True.

Would it be ok to torture/kill a 1-yr old child of some Al-Qaeda leader in order to get information from the father?

Firstly, I must point out that it sure as hell would not be “right.” Now, you may think “Right” and “ok” are redundant, but they are not necessarily. But while it would almost never be “Right” to torture or kill a 1-year old in cold blood (there may be exceptions out there, but I can’t think of them right now), but the question is WHAT information are we talking about? Mundane troop movements? Of course not.

But what if (and yes, this is hypothetical, but than again so is your own example) said AQ bigwig is in charge of smuggling several pieces of fine Russian hardware straight from their Siberian holding pens to various major Western cities an- when the time is right- making the American Coastlines, Central France, the Latin Plains, and Southeast England uninhabitable for a few centuries?

Can I say for certain that harming or murdering (for it is murder, not merely “killing”) would be justifiable under those circumstances? Of course not.

What is the lesser of two evils? I don’t know.

But it should make you question exactly what the parameters of morality are. As it does for me.

While it is all well and good to dislike torture or carpet bombing, the question becomes at what point, against what enemy, does it become justified- or even necessary?

I don’t have all the answers- hell, I might not have any- but cookie-cutter morality certainly doesn’t, either.

If your answer is “no” then you are admitting that (a) there are civilians, and (b) when we know who they are, we should not deliberately harm them.

True, but in the case of B, what fits into that? Murdering a toddler certainly does, but what about one strapped to a bomb and told to come at you and press the big red button when you are close? What about the civilian war workers of a major city? What effect does the tides of war play on these abstract calculations, and what is justifiable- or even a necessity- when you are on the verge of defeat and being slaughtered from the fact of the Earth (think Poland 1939) become taboo if you are riding your enemies’ misery and total triumph is in sight? Or even vice-versa?

Think.

In other less obvious cases the problem is determining who the civilians are, not how we should treat them once they are identified.

On the whole, I would agree. However, the circumstances mean much. And sadly enough, there are all-too often no perfect choices.

sesquipedalian:

You again. Didn’t I deal with you last time?

grasping at straws…? russia was protecting her territorial integrity.

So, Russia would have been justified to go in and violently crush the independence of the Ukraine and the Baltic Republics, China is entirely clean on supressing the Ughurs and Tibetians, and the Turks can do whatever the hell they want to the Armenians, Kurds, and Pontic Greeks so long as they justify it by “defending territorial integrity?”

Such moral equivalence is sickening.

will we be allowed to do the same to texans if they secede?

Like many things, it depends of the “tune” of the conflict.

In all due likelihood, it would be like the Civil War: an interfamily struggle where neither side truly has the will to commit atrocities against the other. But if the Texans did what the Chechens did? Well, a slight dosage of it would be acceptable, but only under certain situations.

which enables us to claim the moral high ground and torture people. sweet.

You would be less sarcastic if you knew what we owe to putting unsavory individuals under the knife, in a cramped room, or on their backs blindfolded with water dripping up their nooses.

The sarcasm would go right out the window.

ajacksonian:

Wonderful, a Putin apologist.

Chechnya is the war the Left will not talk about.

It involves Russia.
It involves Muslims.
It involves terrorists.
It involves terrorists supplying cells that indiscriminantly bomb in cities.
It involves torture.
It involves al Qaeda.
It involves Iran.

You forgot to mention:

It involves Murder Squads (on both sides)
It involves indiscriminate shelling of everything that moves
It involves savage murder behind the scenes in Russia
It involves the continuing justification of Putin’s police state
It involves outright ethnic cleansing
It involves the Neo-KGB- the FSB- who operate behind the scenes doing god knows what
It involves censorship
It involves corruption and petty tyranny (on both sides)
And it involves Putin’s greed for oil.

Strange that you didn’t mention it.

And it is one of the nastiest ‘little wars’ with a high body count that anyone dares not talk about.

True.

Yeah, one of the recruiters in the Hamburg cell for al Qaeda was a graduate of Chechnya… on the al Qaeda side of things, so it should just fit ever so neatly in the Leftist maxim of ‘killing terrorists only gets more terrorists’ save that the guy involved said: don’t go to Chechnya, you’ll only get killed. A recruiter for terrorists involved in 9/11.

Perhaps that is so, but word on the ‘tube is that Chechnya is a far better war to fight in than Iraq or Afghanistan, just a far worse one to be captured in. The Russians still haven’t learned all the lessons. Which is probably a good thing.

Then there is Beslan, that the Left doesn’t like talking about for some strange reason. Perhaps its the school children being taken hostage by Islamic terrorists. Hard to make those terrorists look good when they have children at gunpoint.

No objection whatsoever.

Of course the Left will point to the horrors of the Russian bombing campaign…

Which, might I add, is actually NOT some trumped-up controversy like the Koran-toilet thing? Have you SEEN Grozny post-bombardment?

but can’t really compare that to much of anything done by the US in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

And I am happy to say that I am proud of that.

Somehow trying to make Abu Ghraib look ‘bad’

They don’t have to try to make what happened (PAST TENSE) at Abu Ghraib look bad. They just try to inflate it into something that it is not: a blanket indictment of the West.

when you got stuff like Beslan to compare it to… well… somehow that ‘moral equivalence’ just breaks down when you have one with captured terrorists being humiliated and another with terrorists willing to kill innocent children.

That is true.

Somehow its hard to get any ‘moral equivalence’ from that.

And if somebody didn’t know about what the Islamists have done but heard what the Russians have done multiple times in Georgia, Chechnya, and Central Asia, I too would think they would also have trouble drawing equivalence between the Russians and the West.

And yet that is part of the many faces of Islamic terrorism. Of course al Qaeda did some extremely vile stuff in Iraq so you can’t make Abu Ghraib out to be the same as some of those horror stories.

True

So when the Left can finally get all huffy and puffy and morally indignant about the inhumanity of the COIN in Chechnya, then I might bother listening to them.

I agree.

Its hard to criticize brutally effective Russians against brutal terrorists.

Let me do it for them:

The Russians in Chechnya have shown an alarming disregard for who is actually INNOCENT or not. They just go to town in ways that would make Bomber Harris blanch.

Easier to go after an accountable military for a few of its misdeeds than the horror that happened in Chechnya. Much bigger target when your goal is to kill as little as possible to get the job done…

True.

yet the huffing and puffing only comes against those that try to do as little killing as possible, while those that kill indiscriminantly get all the sympathy and wailing.

The irony of your whitewashing Russia comes into full bloom with this small snippet.

Which is why I can’t take anyone crying about Iraq seriously until they address Chechnya. They won’t.

True, and you could have ended on a true note, but you screw up at the end:

Because the ‘moral equivalence’ argument goes out the window.

Not particularly. If anything, Chechnya is FAR more of a morally equivalent war than ANYTHING in Iraq or Afghanistan. On one side, you have Islamist terrorists killing everything that moves. On the other hand, you have Russian murder squads tearing up the landscape and not really caring WHO they kill.

Welcome to hell indeed.

If you are going to talk about Chechnya, let’s not excuse Putin and his allies for their misdeeds, OK?

Because to do so is a crime against their innocent (EMPHASIS ON INNOCENT) victims, both in Chechnya and in Russia.

Allahpundit:

Fair analysis, but I have one MASSIVE quibble:

In World War II, Britain began bombing German cities after Germany started the Blitz, although Germany claims it was provoked by Britain. In World War I, everyone started using chemical warfare in order to break the stalemate. Each side claims a moral superiority, but it’s usually the losers who pay the price.

As I mentioned before, the British did nothing to provoke the Germans into carpet bombing, and only “provoked” them into the London Blitz in the minds of the Fuhrer’s staff and their apologists.

In World War I, everyone started using chemical warfare in order to break the stalemate

But it was GERMANY who did it first. And it was GERMANY who intentionally targeted the unarmed and the defenseless for murder in Belgium, Luxembourg, Poland, the Ukraine, and the High Seas. It was ultimately GERMANY who sold its soul and ANY legitimate claim to a moral highground by their violations of international law and human ethics.

The Russians never got a chance to respond and the Western Allies only followed them to the extent necessary for self-defense.

Each side claims a moral superiority, but it’s usually the losers who pay the price.

True, but this should not ignore the genuine actions of both sides, and the fact that the loosers in both World Wars actually WERE responsible for their crimes.

Turtler on April 28, 2009 at 9:12 PM